Im not one of those people who buys their bithday cakes at the grocery store bakery, or even makes them from a box of cake mix... I love to make it myself! And not only because its cheaper, but I love baking, and seeing people enjoy food that I created.
Every year my oldest son asks for a Carvel ice cream cake, and reluctatly I buy it because it's so darn good... but this year I opted to make it myself and Oh. My. Gosh.!! The bomb! And a fraction of the cost! Locally a 13X9ish size Carvel cake is $29.99, are you serious?! Do you know what I could do with $29.99?! LOL.
So heres my approximately $11 cake, which was even better in my family's opinion.
Keep in mind, the best results will come from making your cake over a 2 day period, or at least a very long day. Theres layers that require frreezing seperately. Sounds tedious but its not...promise!!
Ingredients:
- 2 half gallons of ice cream (store brand will do) any 2 flavor varieties...be creative!
- 1.5 sleeves of Oreos, or bo-bo store brand, with the cream removed. Then crushed, I put mine in a bread bag and smashed with a rubber mallot, or if you have a coarse chop setting on your blender thats perfect also.
- 1 bottle Magic Shell
- whipped cream (for frosting) NOTE* my kids think they hate whipped cream but they didnt even notice :)
Steps:
- Soften 1 container of ice cream, takes a little while to soften in the center, so once it starts to get liquidy on the outer edges, I put it in a mixing bowl and smoothed it out with a spoon, seemed to speed up the process. Spread evenly over a parchment paper/wax paper lined cake pan (or lasagna pan)
- In seperate bowl combine crushed cookies and entire bottle of Magic Shell (make sure to shake it really good 1st or it comes out gross and unnatural looking..lol) Mix well, do not freeze or itll turn into a giant clump. Sprinkle those delicious lil' crunchies all over the 1st layer of softened ice cream. Gently press them down a teeny bit to get them settled.
- FREEZE for a good 2 hours at least, you want the ice cream to harden again and crunchies to harden.
- Soften your next layer of ice cream, spread on top of crunchies, and freeze again.
Wait....wait...wait.... Once frozen solid ( I waited overnight), add your whipped cream frosting. Freeze again.
Once frosting is hardened, go ahead and decorate! I make a super simple 4 ingredient vanilla icing, its super fast, cheap and yummy. Will post link to it.
Additional tips and ideas....
Add crushed candy bars to any plain vanilla or chocolate ice cream to make it even more yummy...way cheaper than buying the expensive ones, (ex: Snickers ice cream) Works really well if you freeze the candy bar 1st, itll smash into smaller bits that way (good ol' bread bag and hammer technique ;) )
Use oversided wax/parchment paper to line your pan so you can easily lift the cake out to serve on a platter or cardboard.
