How to make your own Ice Cream Cake

I started making my own ice cream cakes about seven years ago. I've always loved ice cream cakes, but started being disappointed in the quality or taste of the ice cream cakes we were buying - so I tried my hand at making my own.

What I love about these is that you can totally make them your own way! You choose all the flavors and fillings. We let the birthday boy or girl customize their own cake!

This cake was a surprise for my neighbor's birthday, and her husband told us what flavors to use.

For this cake I used fudge ripple and chocolate ice cream with an oreo cookie layer, a fudge frosting layer, and a whipped cream topping. (or whuuped cream as my son calls it...)

FOR CAKE & FILLINGS - Depending on the size of cake you are making will determine how much ice cream you will need - usually at least two - 1.5 quarts. The one thing to think about for fillings is that whatever you use will freeze (duh...), but I've used brownies before, and when they freeze they don't thaw at the same rate as the ice cream and they are pretty hard to eat. Candy bars can be tricky as well - very hard after they freeze. We love Snickers, but they are hard to eat when they are frozen. If you use candy bars, use ones with a softer filling.

You can use any kind of mold for your ice cream cake. I make this ice cream cake to have a shape, but you can make it and leave it in a 9 x 13 pan if you'd like too. For this cake I used my Kitchen Aid bowl.

1. Set one flavor of your ice cream out to thaw.

2. Crush your fillers - In this case, oreos.



3. Line the inside of your mold with plastic wrap. Make sure to leave a lot of overhang on the outside of your mold. If you are leaving your ice cream cake inside a 9 x 13 pan, you don't have to worry about this step.



4. Scoop and press softened ice cream into the bottom of your mold. You don't want to use melted ice cream, because it changes the consistency of your ice cream. It makes your cake more icey than creamy like ice cream.



I use the ice cream around the outside, usually, because it gets softer first.



5. Top with your filler layer. Put in freezer for at least an hour. When that hour is up,set out your next flavor of ice cream to soften.



6. Put the next softened layer of ice cream on top of your filler layer. It helps to slice the softened ice cream with a knife too. It looks like the picture below at first:



Then, you spread it out, and it looks like the picture below:

7. Top with your next layer. OR - I put back in the freezer for an hour and make my chocolate frosting. My frosting has to cool a little before I add it to my ice cream or it melts. You have to be fast after you pour it and hurry it back to the freezer or it will melt like the picture below, because I had to take a picture of it.

8. Let harden another hour, then set out the ice cream for your next layer to soften. Spread on next leayer of ice cream.

9. You could make a gigantic ice cream cake with a ton of layers, but this is where this one ends. I used oreos as my last layer. When I flip the mold out, I have oreos as the bottom layer to soak up the ice cream if it melts while sitting out to cut it. You could also use a cake as the bottom layer, but it needs to be a sturdy, dense cake so it wouldn't be crushed by the weight of the ice cream.

10. Let the cake set until completely frozen. When it is frozen, you should be able to completely pull the cake out by the plastic wrap, like the photo below:

11. Place platter on top of your mold, and turn the cake out. Pull off plastic wrap.

12. Whip 2 cups of whipping cream with sugar and vanilla to taste. Spread on frozen cake. Put back in freezer. You could serve it right after you cover it, but if you freeze the whipping cream layer you can decorate that top layer with icing - writing happy birthday or whatever. If I had had enough oreos I would have covered the whole cake with them. You would have to do that before your whipping crem layer is frozen.

Before slicing let cake thaw briefly.

My whipped cream layer was not frozen. Your cake cuts nicer (looks nicer) if it is. This looks really cool when it is a sheet cake mold - just like in the store!

Enjoy!!