Mint Chocolate Ice Cream Cake

This is what it's all about! Family, food and fun! Nothing brings a group together like a meal and lots of good conversation. I hope you enjoy this Guest Post from my daughter-in-law Amanda Cooper Inman as much as I enjoyed this incredible cake!

For every occasion, whether it’s a birthday, a holiday, or a just-because-I-want-to day, I like to make something sweet. I think I use the birthdays and holidays as an excuse to make something-and it’s usually a recipe I’ve never tried before. I find new recipes on Pinterest daily, so I always want to see if I can recreate them.

Dale loves ice cream cake…and mint chocolate chip ice cream. So for his birthday, I thought, why not put them together? I made my first ice cream cake (a cookies and cream one) for Valentine’s Day and it turned out pretty good so I thought I would try it again. I basically got the recipe from Pinterest and made it my way. So here it goes.

INGREDIENTS:

• Devil’s food cake batter 
• ½ gallon mint chocolate chip ice cream, softened 
• 10 chocolate wafers, crushed 
• Chocolate Ganache (see recipe below) 
• Garnishes: whipped cream and Andes mints 

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven according to cake package directions. Grease two 9 inch round cake pans (I always grease using Crisco and some flour). Prepare cake mix and spoon into pans. The recipe I was using said to use three 8 inch round cake pans…but I only had two 9 inch ones and it worked just the same.

For the cake recipe, it called for 3 eggs…well I only had 2 eggs, so I actually used about a Tbsp of mayo to substitute for the other egg. I thought I had read somewhere that you could use mayo for an egg so that’s what I did.

Bake cakes according to directions. Watch carefully because chocolate cake will burn really fast. Use a toothpick to check the middle of the cake and when it comes out clean, you're good. My biggest problem is overestimating the time it takes to cook cake--especially chocolate ones--plus my oven cooks super fast so I have to be careful.

Cool cakes in pan on a wire rack for 10-15 minutes. Remove cakes from pans to wire racks and cool completely (about an hour).

This is the part that gets tricky…okay well it did for me because I am impatient. Either use a 9 inch springform pan or a big plate (which I happen to have instead of the springform pan). Put one cake layer on the plate, round side down--so that the flat side of the cake is facing up. Top with ½ of softened ice cream.

TIP: DON’T do like I did and microwave the ice cream (because I’m impatient-okay really I was just trying to get the cake done because I knew Dale would be coming home soon and the cake was a surprise!) I think I put the ice cream in the microwave for like 20 seconds…but that was 20 seconds too long!! When I spread the ice cream on the cake it looked fine…until it started melting faster than I could spread it and then it didn’t freeze fast enough. So I ended up with melted ice cream all over the freezer and the cake plate…it was still good, just very messy!

Spread ½ of the ice cream on the first layer of cake. Sprinkle with half of the

crushed wafers. Put the second cake on top of first one-flat bottom side down so that the round side is facing up. Then spread with remaining ice cream and crushed wafers. Important: at this point, you will need to freeze the cake 8-12 hours. I did this the day before Dale’s birthday so that it would have time to get frozen before I topped it with the ganache and whipped cream.

After it freezes, you can prepare the Chocolate Ganache. This was the first time I attempted to make ganache. I have always heard the term on the Food Network, but I thought it was something that would be really hard to make. The recipe I found seemed really easy, so I said why not? (I mean I had already screwed up the ice cream part of the ice cream cake, so what else could go wrong? Ha!) 

Ingredients for the Chocolate Ganache are: 1 four ounce semi-sweet chocolate baking bar, chopped and 8 Tbsp whipping cream, divided. Microwave chocolate and 4 Tbsp whipping cream in bowl at High for 1 minute or until melted, stirring at 30 second intervals-CAREFUL chocolate will burn VERY easy! Stir in up to 4 Tbsp additional whipping cream, for desired consistency. Use immediately. 

I topped the cake with the ganache, and then spread whipped cream (the already prepared kind), Andes mints, and more crushed chocolate wafers on top.

Amanda yields a pretty large knife to cut into Dale's Birthday cake after a hot, backyard birthday cookout including her Amazing Grilled Hamburgers!

Perfect on a 100+ degree day!