Ice Cream Cake

For my children's birthday I give them the choice for their cakes.  My oldest always gets the chocolate cake with peanut butter icing.  Both of my sons always choose the ice cream cake.  My youngest daughter changes it up, but for the past two years it has been the ice cream cake.  Other years its been chocolate and sometimes vanilla. 

Well, this year for my son's birthday he chose the ice cream cake.  It's a delicious cake - of course - and very easy to make.  And, yes I will give you the recipe.

The ice cream cake actually doesn't contain cake.  The crust is made out of Oreos, then layered with ice cream, then the chocolate sauce, then the whipped topping.

The recipe:
1 lb of Oreos
2/3 c butter, melted.
1/2 gallon of vanilla ice cream -  softened
4 oz sweet German chocolate
1/2 c butter
2/3 c sugar
2/3 c evaporated milk
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt
1 lg container of Cool Whip
Pecans (optional)

I should warn you - I never follow a recipe exactly.  For instance - the original recipe doesn't actually call for a whole lb of Oreos.  It actually calls for 24.  But what fun is that?  So if I increase the amount of Oreos, then by rights I should increase the butter that I'm going to pour over the Oreos.  The original recipe calls for 1/2 cup of butter at this step.  But if you have more Oreos - then you need more butter.  

 I place the Oreos in a plastic bag before I crush them.  These happen to be double stuffed Oreos.  I actually didn't intend on getting those.  And it is mandatory that you try one or two, or three, before crushing.  I mean, you have to make sure they're fresh right?

 After beating with a mallet.

 Pour them in a 9x13" pan

 Pour the melted butter over the Oreos, mixing well to ensure all the Oreos are wet with the butter.  Here I actually had more butter than needed, because the Oreos were fewer in number due to the double stuffing.  And possibly because there were just fewer in number as well!

When you have spread the Oreo/Butter mixture evenly place in a freezer to freeze. 

 Take your 4 oz of Sweet German's Chocolate - I use Baker's brand - place it in a sauce pan along with your butter.

 Melt together.  Then add the sugar, evaporated milk, vanilla and salt, stirring well to combine.

 Bring the chocolate mixture to a boil, then reduce and continue to cook another 5-10 minutes, until thickened.

 While the chocolate is cooling, remove the Oreo crust from the freezer, spread the softened ice cream evenly over the crust.  You can use a spatula or your hands or both.

 Usually I leave out the ice cream when I start crushing the Oreos.  While the recipe calls for plain vanilla ice cream we use different kinds.  My son want cookies n'cream ice cream this time.  Sometimes we use 1/2 gallon of vanilla and 1/2 gallon of something else - then spread each 1/2 gallon on half the pan.

Place the ice cream/crust back in the freezer to re-freeze.  The chocolate takes sometime to cool. 

 Once the chocolate is cool, remove the ice cream pan from the freezer and pour the chocolate mixture over the ice cream layer.

 Spread evenly.  If you don't I guarantee you there will be a fight in the house about who has more chocolate in their piece!!  Return to freezer to re-freeze. 

 Once the chocolate has frozen (maybe 30 min) spread the cool whip on top.  Return to freezer.  At this point you're finished. 

 You can color the cool whip if you'd like for different effects.

 This year my daughter wanted her cake to be a forest with wild animals.  She would not allow me to decorate the cake with icing, but rather requested the toys.

Last year she wanted a dolphin theme so the cool whip was colored blue for the water.  (Those are Zinnia cupcakes in the background!)  Again, no decorating!! 

 MMmmm, the chocolate has this chocolate caramel taste and texture to it! 

You can use regular icing to decorate with, it turns out fine.  I've found the butter cream icing and the rest of this cake doesn't taste as well together as you might think.  Which is why I don't decorate it.  I suppose you could use a whipped icing.  Maybe I'll try that next time.  For me this is an easy out... I don't have to decorate the cake!! 

I hope you all enjoy this cake as much as we do.  I've been making this ice cream cake for 24 years.  I bought the cookbook in Russellville, Arkansas.  It was one of those books that were made for fundraisers.  This one was compiled by the Board of Parish Fellowship of St. John's Lutheran Church.  The woman who submitted the recipe was Caroline Grenwelge.