How to bake an icecream cake

Did I get you? Now, did I? Did I? Ha! You can’t bake an ice-cream cake (and please refrain from pointing me in the direction of Baked Alaskas, I am trying to make a joke here). So, yeah. You can’t bake an ice-cream cake. You can only make one. Geddit? Geddit? No laughs? None at all? Dang. Entonces, creo que, tus estan muy inteligente por este blog. And before someone shouts foul, hey, we live in the Americas. We don’t do ‘estais’.
Making an ice-cream cake es muy facil. Anyone can do it. Let’s make a..umm…let’see. How about a chocolate-french vanilla-strawberry triple layer cake with oreo and fudge?
For the hardware, you will need
1 spatula, preferable silicone
1-2 large and deep vessels. Like cake tins.
1 hair dryer
Zip-top bag
Rolling pin
Plenty of room in your freezer
Icing comb or a painters plastic spatula (you can buy in hardware stores)
Offset spatula – this will make your life easier. You can always use a butter knife instead.
Medium star-tip for decorating
Icing bag or zip-top bag
Lazy susan – again, not needed, but you will be glad you have it
A plate/platter/fancy board to turn the cake onto. Make sure it goes into your freezer.
I used 2 9” round regular cake pans. Select pans with straight edges for a professional -out-of-a-fancy-cookbook-look. Wilton brand professional aluminum pans are not expensive and are good quality. Make sure the pans/other vessels you choose to make the cake fit into your freezer. You don’t want to assemble the cake, only to find you have to eat it right now, all by yourself, before it melts, with nothing but small dessert spoons. No, m’am. That’s not fun.

Now for the ingredients
12-15 chocolate cookies like oreos
2 tbsp melted butter
1 jar off-the-shelf chocolate fudge sauce
1 ½ cups mini marshmallows
Sweetened flaked coconut
1 pint each of strawberry, vanilla and chocolate ice-cream – get full-fat version
Don’t try to be healthy here. This is not the time. If you choose the low-fat or fat-free versions, you are going to get bits of ice in your ice-cream cake. They are very annoying. And can have disastrous effects. Say, you eat a low-fat version of the ice-cream cake, get annoyed by the ice-crystals and in that state sit in your car and back out of your drive way only to hit the neighbor’s car. That’s far unhealthier than eating a slice of a full-fat ice-cream cake, verdad?
5 cups whipped icing – you can buy an instant powder by Wilton’s or making your own is easy. A pint of Whipping/Heavy cream,1-2 egg whites or meringue powder and a bit of confectioner’s sugar. Whip until stiff peaks form. I bought Wilton’s because it’s egg-free knowing Chip’s allergies.
Gel food color of your choice – I made a lovely pale blue by combining royal blue and moss green.

How-tos
Set the ice-cream on the counter to soften a bit. For how long? Well.. that depends on your geographical location. Tropical climates 2-3 minutes, subtropical – 3-4 minutes.. you get the drift. You should not be left with a puddle, obviously, but the ice cream should be soft enough to spread.

While the ice-cream softens, put the Oreos in a zip-top bag, add the melted butter and crush with a rolling pin until they resemble crumbs. Pat down those crumbs firmly into the base of cake tin #1. Add a layer of softened vanilla ice-cream. Cover with a layer of marshmallows. Heat the jar of fudge sauce in a microwave until soft. Scoop the fudge sauce and spread it over the marshmallows. Add a layer of strawberry ice-cream. In the second cake tin, add strawberry icecream at the bottom, layer with fudge sauce and then a layer of coconut and a layer of chocolate ice-cream. Pat down very firmly. If you have parchment paper, you can use that to level the top edges. Cover and freeze for at least 8 hours. Make sure your freezer is set at its coldest setting.

The next day, armed with your hair-free hair dryer set to warm; blow air on the sides and the bottom of the cake pans. The ice cream will soften. Turn the cake onto a plate and turn it right side up on your serving platter. Repease with cake tin #2. Make sure the layers align properly. Freeze again for 8 hours.

To decorate
Make the whipped icing and ice the cake. Work fast because the ice cream will melt. You may have to keep it in the freezer a few times before you can ice it fully. The turntable, the painters spatula will make your life easier. If your ice-cream cake is all chocolate, I will suggest to cover it with a coating of vanilla ice-cream before you frost the cake. Freeze the frosted cake for a couple of hours before you enjoy. Here is a picture of the ice-cream cake I made for Chip’s birthday.