Ice Cream Cake

Is it possible for food to be a pun?  I saw this idea on Pinterest, and I thought it was the cutest thing!  It's an ice cream cake that looks like ice cream!

My niece was having a birthday party (6 years old!), and I thought I would make her cake since I was actually in town (and I made her sister cupcakes for her birthday, so it was only fair).  I had another cake in mind, but the girls said they wanted ice cream cake, so I had the perfect excuse to finally try this out!

I didn't really follow a particular recipe.  I gathered tips from various magazines and Pinterest and used them as a guide for making this cake.

 

Step 1:

Bake the cake.  I used a white cake mix and added sprinkles to turn it into sort of a "funfetti" cake.  You will need to bake it in 2 pans for the layers.  The cake layers didn't turn out as thick as I would have liked, so I had to improvise.  If you were to use more cake batter to get thicker layers, you could slice each cake layer in half, giving you more layers to work with when it comes time to layer with the ice cream.

Let the cakes cool thoroughly before moving on to the next step!  (I baked the cake in the morning, and layered in the evening.)

(Step 1.5: Lick the bowl!)

Step 2:

Make the ice cream layer!  I used a full container of strawberry ice cream (I think they're about 1.5 quarts now).  Here's where one of the tips I found came in handy: line a cake pan (the same size you used to bake the cake) with plastic wrap.  Scoop out the ice cream into the pan, and press flat with a large spoon.  It may help to run some hot water on the spoon to heat it up first.  Once it is nice and flattened, stick it in the freezer for about 20 minutes.

While the ice cream is in the freezer, level the tops of your cake layers.

Step 3:

Layer it up!  Place your bottom layer, flip out your ice cream layer onto it, and top with the last cake layer.  (If the cake came out thick enough to cut into more layers, I would have used 3 layers of ice cream with less in each layer, and 4 layers of cake.  But this worked well enough.)

Put it back in the freezer for 12-24 hours.  (I left it overnight.)

Step 4:

(This is where you have to start working quickly, so the cake doesn't melt!)

Frost the cake.  I made a homemade buttercream frosting, dyed pink.  I need to work on my buttercream skills, because while the texture was pretty good, it seemed too sweet to me.  I started out by piping frosting into the gaps between the layers, then zig-zagging across teh sides and top, before spreading ti smooth with a spatula.  This method gets good, even coverage of your frosting with ZERO cake crumbs getting into it while you spread!

Put the cake back in the freezer while you prepare to decorate.

Step 4:

Decorate.  

a) I started by cutting some waffle cones in half.  This was really tricky to do without ending up with shattered pieces of waffle cone.  After a few tries, I discovered that there are sort of faint "corners" in the cone (ie not perfectly round) from the way it was molded.  If I lightly cut at those lines, they cut in half fairly well.  I also ended up having to cut the tips off because the cones were too tall for the cake.  Glue the cones to the side of the cake with some leftover frosting, and put the cake back in the freezer.

b) Next, I whipped up some homemade whipped cream.  This is pretty easy: put some heavy whipping cream in the mixer and whisk on high.  Add a little sugar and (optionally) some cream of tarter or merengue powder (helps keep stiffness), and whisk until stiff.  Pipe the whipped cream in the middle of the "cones" using a large star tip and top with maraschino cherries.  Put the cake back in the freezer.

 (I ran out of whipped cream, so I used leftover frosting in one if the cones instead.)

(Side view, with sprinkles.)

c) Lastly, the finishing touches!  I added some sprinkles on top and drizzled with shell chocolate and caramel.  Other ideas: nuts, strawberry sauce, banana slices, or pretty much whatever you would put on an ice cream sundae!

Verdict: It was good, and looked fantastic!  I would definitely make it again, and there are plenty of different variations that could be done.  Even though I personally thought the buttercream was too sweet, others said the overall cake itself wasn't. Oh yeah, and bits of waffle cone when you're eating ice cream cake?  Heaven.