I do love Ice Cream…..especially in cake

I do love birthdays and birthday parties, but I am always left with soooo much cake. The end result is always me eating some of the cake as I do not like to waste (OK, a little more than some!). So in order to avoid this occurrence, I had to be somewhat creative and think of what there is never anything left over of in our house once served. Easy answer: ice cream.  So after researching buying an ice cream cake (kinda expensive) and trying to figure out how to get it home without melting, a new tradition was started in our house…..HOME MADE ICE CREAM CAKE!

It is really easy to make! Everyone eats it AND you can put it back into to the freezer if there is any chance it isn’t finished on the first offering!

I have made this cake for kids and adult parties and they are always a hit! So here goes my EASY PEASY ICE CREAM CAKE!

What you need:

• Flip form pan
• 2 tubs of 2l ice creams in any flavour you like
• Cookies, biscuits or even chocolate pieces

How to make it:

1. Take the ice cream out of the freezer and let it stand for a few minutes. It mustn’t be runny, just soft and still cold.
2. Layer the bottom of the flip form pan with a layer of wax (this will help when you take the bottom off). If you don’t have wax paper you can make it without it (see hints below).
3. Press the first tubs ice cream into the bottom half of the pan. You can use some kitchen gloves, but I would just persevere as it doesn’t take too long. Tip: Your fingers should be freezing when doing this! Mine normally feel like they are about to fall off. That means that the ice cream is still cold and semi frozen.
4. Now you can sprinkle a layer of cookies, biscuits, Astros or whatever your hear desires as a middle layer.
5. Immediately proceed to tip the second tub of ice cream into the pan and press into the pan.
6. Try and get the top even and cover the whole pan with cling film.
7. Leave in the freezer. You can make the cake a day or so before your party.

How to get it ready to serve

1. I usually take it out of the pan an hour or so before I am ready to serve it. Remove the cling film and rub a warmed cloth around the outside of the tin. You will see it start to melt slightly and it will make it easier to remove the sides of the flip form pan.
2. One you have it out tip it over onto the serving plate and remove the top of the pan
3. Decorate and serve!

Hints (These are proven hints…..my non-pintrest moments)

• If you are not using the wax on the bottom of the pan, you can also leave the cake on the bottom and serve
• If you don’t have a flip form pan you can always use a deep baking pan. Once you are ready to get the ice cream cake out of the pan you can use the same method as I did with a warm cloth or you can use your hairdryer on a low setting to loosen the cake from the sides . Not too warm or it will melt the whole cake!!!