Quick Ice Cream Cake!

We love ice cream cake here. It's one of those often-requested desserts and they're so easy to make... and so stinkin' expensive to buy!

Today's is an easy peasy one that seriously, I could sit down and EAT THE WHOLE THING, it was that good, and the possibilities are endless!

The trick with this one is BUTTER.....

You add butter to coarsely chopped cookies and it's a huge, ginormous, humongous difference!!!

So here's the basic for an 8" square cake:

2 Sleeves of Oreo cookies (or two rows if you buy the normal family-sized package... Also, you can use chocolate chip cookies instead, maybe any crisp cookie would work??? I've tried the Oreos and the Chocolate chip with amazingly wonderful splendorific results.  Am I waxing superfluous?????  :)  There's a reason for it, I promise!!!!

3/4 cup butter, melted

Break up cookies, do not pulverize or over-crush, you want these bad boys chunky/crunchy
Mix with butter.

Line 8" square pan with freezer paper or aluminum foil.

Spread half of the cookie mix into the pan.

Top with 2/3 of a carton of your favorite ice cream. (I used cookies and cream today, but I've used dark chocolate mint (then the whole thing tastes like a Thin Mint sundae), vanilla, cookie dough, caramel swirl... as you wish!)  Then add in the other half of the buttery cookie goodness. Press down lightly. Freeze.

About an hour later, spread 1/2 jar of hot fudge topping over cake.  You can either whip cream then and cover it or use aerosol whipped cream on individual servings. (We did that because it was Elijah's birthday and he's not big on whipped cream.

He does not get that from me!!!!!)  DONE. DONE. DONE.   You could go a layer higher for adults, but for the kids this was the perfect size, about 2-3 inches high, a perfect serving!!!

This is so beyond amazingly delicious as to render me speechless.

Well.

Clearly not SPEECHLESS, but oh my stars, I really could have eaten the whole stupid thing. And asked for more after I licked the freezer paper clean.

To Serve:  I put the whole thing in the microwave on defrost for two minutes, (not full power, please pay attention to this very important direction or you're going to be so stinkin' mad at me!!!) then lifted the freezer paper and slid the cake onto a large plate. Cutting was easy with a serrated knife and the kids loved it!

And speaking of kids, here are our current projects..... M&M math (and yes, you get to eat the answers, making this a very popular BRIBING lesson!!!!)

And we've finished our OCEAN unit and we're talking about God now....

And life and death and how Jesus loved us so very much....

This is our new wall poster in the beginning stages:

An empty tomb....  As if rock could hold back our God!!!!  

Pfft.

We'll "frame" our rock tomb and then we're going to decorate it with signs of spring! Butterflies, chicks, new life, re-birth and a cross....

And this has replaced every other Disney movie in my head because it is the NEW AND BEST FAVORITE!!!!!

Love, love, love, love!!!!!!!

And here is a link to the song that every one of my little ones SINGS ALL THE TIME....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0MK7qz13bU

And this is my nod to how much fun I had writing "His Montana Sweetheart" part of the Big Sky Centennial continuity for Love Inspired!!!!  I had so much fun writing about ranching and studying... cowboys, that is, studying COWBOYS!!!!!!.... that I think I might come up with a cowboy series....

I mean seriously, can you think of anything more Americana than cowboys???? Unless it's cowboys and BABIES!!!!!  :)

Yes.

I am smitten!!!!

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Xavier's Ice Cream Cake!

The order came in as most orders do... a quiet request for ice cream cake for two-year-old Xavier's birthday.

YES, YES, YES!!!!!!

Who doesn't want to avoid a $40 charge for a gallon of ice cream?  So sure, you can do the norm and just use a couple of great flavors and I've done that often to rousing applause.

(Cue the canned applause!!!)

But this time, oh THIS TIME I SAW THIS AT SAM'S CLUB!!!!

Schwan's ice cream.

I've always wanted to try Schwan's. I mean the very idea of an ice cream truck rolling into your driveway, delivering frosty goodness to your door on a regular schedule????  Oh My Stars, that's a dream right there!!!

So then I thought: Create This Cake.

So I did this:

Yup, I whipped out a box of Pillsbury traditional brownie mix (affordable and the basis for so many brownie recipes it should be against the law!!!!)  I made it and baked it and then did this:

Oops, not that, that is Dave's cell phone, the cheapest most simplistic electronic device known to man, a device that should be in his pocket at all times in case his wife needs him.... Clearly this device is left where I generally find it, uncharged and sitting on the counter.

Hmm....

Okay, moving on:

I chunked up about 1/3 of a 13" x 9" pan of baked brownies....

And then I tossed them into the freezer to firm up because I didn't want to smush them into the ice cream...

How did those disinfectant wipes get in there? Honestly, the CHEEK of some things... (Ruthy spirits them away to downstairs bathroom, a room in chronic need of quick wipe downs and maybe put the container in the pic deliberately so folks wouldn't think she's quite as messy as she makes out... they'd be WRONG, DEAD WRONG, but it's okay for folks to cut the Ruthinator some slack...)

Okay, this is more like it! A gallon of high quality ice cream, Ghirardelli dark chocolate chips, a big bowl and thou.... Pure poetry, I say!!!!

So I took about 1/3 of the ice cream and softened it in the bowl.... (this means I went off to keep painting the dining room windows while the ice cream sat, with the TIMER ON. Otherwise we'd have soup.)

That's another blog, another day.

So I stirred up the ice cream and spread it in the bottom of a 15 x 11' baking dish. (13 x 9"'s big sister)

Then I added the chocolate brownie chunks into it... and drizzled it with chocolate syrup because why wouldn't you????

Okay, I may have reversed that order, no matter!!!

Then I softened the next third of the gallon (I put this big bad boy into the freezer to stay firm while I worked the next layer.)

I added about 1 cup of those dark chocolate Ghirardelli bad boys and stirred, then spread it over the C-O-L-D cake in freezer....

Then more crushed chocolate cookie.... You can never have too much crushed chocolate cookie!!! I pressed this down with the palm of my hand... Very "Ma Ingalls", remember?  "Pa says that the imprint of my hand on the loaf is sweetener enough for him."

Dave has never said any such thing to me. He has not even come close to saying any such thing. He has said things like: "Why did you put your hand on the bread?"

But I digress.

Okay, now you soften the last 1/3 and spread it over the top as smoothly as humanly possible. But do not fret the homemade whipped cream frosting will cover dents and dings!!!!

 Hmmm.... Beth has the final picture of the finished product and she forgot to bring it buy and doesn't have Internet in her cave-in-the-woods so I'll add that later.... In the meantime, let's just enjoy this the way it is!