Homemade Ice Cream Cake
My roommate Kate is somewhat of a culinary genius. Not because she cooks fabulously ornate meals or spends hours slaving over the stove. But because in the age of shortcuts, spice mixes, and semi-homemade bullshit, she still cooks with simple, high-quality ingredients all the time. She does not buy anything prepackaged. She pulls together fabulous dinner parties on the fly quite often, and last week she outdid herself, again. Something I just learned about her is that (a long time ago), she worked at a chain ice cream shop, and her job during the day was to make the cakes. And in typical Kate fashion, she took that skill and made something even more fabulous out of it.
I present to you the homemade ice cream cake, using Kate’s standard formula: 2 ice creams, 1 cookie, 1 candy, 2 drizzles. In this particular instance it was a birthday cake, so the birthday guy got to choose: vanilla, coffee, oreos, Reeses cups, chocolate and peanut butter.
The Pauly Special
Makes one 13×9 cake
Editor’s note: Like a good ES-er, Kate doesn’t measure or use recipes, so this is all very flexible.
Two ice creams: 1 carton vanilla and 1 carton coffee
One cookie: aprox 1.5 packages of oreos
1 candy: peanut butter cups, in whatever quantity you choose to top the cake
Two drizzles: chocolate bar and peanut butter
Other ingredients: 1 stick butter
Preheat oven to 350. Put half of your cookie (oreos) into a food processor and pulse until they’re broken down into small pieces. Melt butter and gradually add to the crushed cookie, until the mixture is the consistency of wet sand (you may not use the entire stick). Press these into the bottom of a greased baking sheet and bake about 5 minutes. Let cool.
Remove ice cream from freezer, at least 15 minutes prior to assembly. Once the ice cream is soft, assemble your cake: On top of the cookie crust, layer the first ice cream in pan, followed by a layer of crushed cookie, then layer the other ice cream. Depending on which candy you choose, you can either just sprinkle it on top as is, or crush it (in this case, the peanut butter cups were crushed before topping)
You can get creative with the drizzles and use hot fudge or other ice cream toppings, but Kate simply used melted peanut butter and chocolate bars. Melt each over a double boiler (or in the microwave, if you’re feeling adventurous) and drizzle over the top of the cake. Freeze for about 1-2 hours or until solid. CONSUME. America plates optional.
