Ice cream cake

Even though Gage won't eat cake anymore, he has realized that giving decorated cakes to people has some value and has asked me to make cakes for a couple of his friends for birthdays in lieu of taking them a gift.  I made a two tiered animal print cake for a Sweet 16 party (and was running so late with it that I didn't even get a picture of it!!) for his friend a couple of weeks ago.  When he asked if I was willing to make another birthday cake I was happy to have a reason to make one--and even more excited when he asked if it could be an ice cream cake.  Something I hadn't tried before. 

I decided that since I only had a few days to put it together I wouldn't try to make my own ice cream.  The texture can sometimes be an issue, so I went to Dairy Queen and bought several quarts of their soft serve.  While I was there I scoped out their cakes to get an idea of how to layer mine.

A lot of this cake could be prepped ahead, so I started by lining cake pans with saran wrap then filled them with the ice cream and stuck them in the freezer.  I crushed chocolate cookies and coated them in melted chocolate to keep them crunchy in the fudge sauce filling and set that aside. 

Decoration instructions were minimal:  Something Hello Kitty.  I made an image for the top of the cake using the piped chocolate method, but this time found a picture online to use rather than drawing my own.  This is a really simple, fast way to get a decent image on a cake without trying to pipe frosting free hand on top of the cake.  Fast as in like less than ten minutes start to finish, and that's always good for someone like me who will work on details right up until the deadline.

When it was time to really put the cake together all I had left to do was make the whipped frosting.  I found a recipe for stabilized whipped cream online and went with it--I needed something that would hold up better than just whipped topping. This tasted really good and was perfect for the cake:

Stabilized Whipped Cream Frosting  

(adapted from allrecipes.com)

• 4 tsp cold water
• 1 tsp unflavored gelatin
• 1 cup heavy whipping cream
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1/4 cup powdered sugar

Combine cold water and gelatin in a small dish until the mixture combines, then heat the mixture on the stove until the gelatin dissolves.  Remove from the heat and allow it to cool for several minutes.  Add a bit of the cream into the gelatin mixture and stir until incorporated  (I learned the hard way that this will help keep the gelatin from clumping).  In a mixing bowl, beat the whipping cream and powdered sugar.  Slowly add the gelatin/cream combination to the mixing bowl and continue to whip until stiff. 

The assembly was a little bit frustrating since I had to keep running the cake to the basement freezer to keep in from melting in between steps.  But the finished product was worth the effort, and I made sure I made enough of everything for a cake at our house too...for Fat Sunday, my favorite time of the week.