Ice Cream Cake

Sorry I've been a bit MIA lately.  It's been a busy time of travel recently.  Last week I used a few of the skills I've learned this spring to make a birthday cake for a friend.  She asked for an ice cream cake, which takes patience and time!  Next time I will remember to take pictures at each stage.  Instead I'll just have to describe the stages of this ice cream cake.

Stage 1: Cake
Bake the cake and freeze it.  I baked two layers of chocolate cake in 8" cake pans.

Easier method: Ideally, I would like a springform pan that is the same size as a cake pan.  I will buy a 9" springform pan for this purpose.  Then, I would bake one layer in the springform pan and one layer in a normal cake pan.   This will make sense soon!

Stage 2: Ice Cream
I let the ice cream soften and then made two layers using the cake pans I used for the cake.  I lined the pans with wax paper, to make it easy to get the ice cream out. I used vanilla, as that was the request, but this is where you could really have fun, maybe cookies and cream, or mint chocolate chip?  You could even press crumbled cookies, candy, or fruit into the ice cream layer.

Step 3: Layer
After the ice cream layers were hard I took out all cake and ice cream layers and put them together.  then froze this again overnight.

Easier Method: If you baked the first layer of your cake in the spring form pan, you could combine steps 2 and 3!  You could just put a layer of softened ice cream on top of cake layer #1.  Then add cake layer #2 and add a second layer of softened ice cream and put back in the freezer until all layers are frozen hard together.  I would do it overnight.  Then you just undo the springform sides to decorate.

Step 4: Decorate
To decorate everything needs to be really frozen.  Don't skimp on this time.  There are a lot of opinions out there regarding the best frosting to use for ice cream cakes.  I used a dried frosting mix (found in Phoenix!) and whipped that with whipping cream.  For the decoration frosting, I used a classic buttercream.  It was kind of a beach theme, so I found fun candies for the sides.  You must work quickly and get it back in the freezer to freeze solid.