Ice Cream Cake

Several weeks ago, I shared this recipe for Ice Cream Cake over at Angela's Adventures and today I'm sharing it here! 

When Angela invited me over to talk about Summer, I knew it was the perfect chance to take on a summery recipe challenge I've wanted to do for awhile: a layered ice cream cake! There's nothing better than deliciously-cold ice cream on a hot Summer day. Oh wait, yes there is...ice cream AND cake! Let me just say, this cake wasn't nearly as hard as I'd imagined it would be. And, believe me, I'm not one who typically bakes elaborate things!

Okay, so this isn't really a recipe, think of it more as a tutorial. 

Supplies: 

a yellow cake mix (baked in two 9-inch round cake pans, according to package directions)

one- 1.5 pint tub of ice cream (I chose cookies and cream)

one bag of mini chocolate chips

one batch of buttercream icing (I used this recipe by Joy of Baking)

The first thing I did was bake my box cake in two 9-inch pans. As those were cooling, I lined a 9 inch cake pan with plastic wrap (for easy removal!) and filled it with softened ice cream. The entire 1.5 pint tub fit into my pan (much to my husband's disappointment!). I then stuck the ice cream pan into the freezer to set overnight.

In the morning, I arranged my layers on a cake plate: cake layer 1, ice cream layer, cake layer 2.

Tip: Turn the top layer upside down to get a perfectly flat-topped cake!

When my cake was stacked, I stuck it back into the freezer while I made my buttercream icing. When I was ready to ice the cake, I took it out of the freezer and used a wide spatula to fill in the gaps between layers and then covered the entire cake in buttercream. It didn't have to be perfect or pretty, because after that, I covered the cake in mini chocolate chips (yum!).

Tip: do this on a large sheet of parchment paper to catch the stray chips! After the cake was iced and chocolate chipped, I stuck it back into the freezer while I got my piping tip ready. 

To pipe my icing, I placed a piping tip into the corner of a large ziplock back, trimmed the bag's tip and filled the bag with my remaining buttercream. I then piped little icing puffs all the way around my cake's base and then three rows on top of the cake. I don't know all the technical terms and I'm definitely not a pro, but I've found the trick is to get the icing thick enough to stay in place when you pipe it. No runny buttercream here! Add more confectioners sugar if the icing doesn't stay in peaks when piped. 

Store the cake in the freezer until you're ready to serve (obviously, right?!) :).

This was SO good and really, not that hard. Go ahead and give it a try. If I can do it, you can do it!

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