Ice-Cream Cake

Have you ever had ice-cream cake from an ice-cream shop made with Oreo cookie crumbs? This cake is made with crumbs...and butter. This butter part is key because it will make you and your fellow cake eaters fight over the crust while you leave the ice-cream to melt all over the plate.  Of course, if it's your birthday, you might just have a fighting chance.

Of the repertoire of birthday cakes I make for people, this is probably the most frequently requested. And, between you and me, it's always a nice choice on my end because it's so easy! On the other person's end, it has the added plus of the birthday girl (or boy) getting to choose his or her favorite flavors, as was the case when I made this for my sister.  She chose chocolate and vanilla, but you could, of course, branch out a bit and still have a spectacular cake.

Ice-Cream Cake

2 (18 ounce) packages of Oreo cookies

2 sticks butter, melted

2 half gallons of ice-cream (any flavors)

Grind the Oreos in a food processor until you have fine crumbs.  (Alternatively, you can put them inside a double plastic Ziploc bag and roll a glass, wine bottle, rolling pin, etc. over them to crush them as fine as possible.)  Pour crumbs into a large bowl and add melted butter.  Stir together.  Press 3/4 of the crumbs along the bottom and sides of a 10-inch springform pan, then freeze until firm, about 10-15 minutes.  Remove one of the ice-creams from the freezer and, when crust is firm, scoop ice-cream into bottom of pan, making sure to press against the sides too.  Smooth with a spoon and pack down until even.  Pour remaining crumbs on top and spread to edges.  Freeze cake for 10 minutes until firm.  Remove the second ice-cream from the freezer and pack into pan on top of crumbs.  

Depending on the temperature of your freezer, take the cake out about 20 minutes before you will cut it so that it will soften (I have actually bent a cake cutter/server beyond repair trying to cut through one of these frozen cakes before!).  Slice and serve with whipped cream (whip heavy cream with vanilla and a little powdered sugar and your favorite hot fudge sauce). 

 Cookie crumbs mixed with butter.

Cookie crumbs pressed into pan.

Chocolate ice-cream being packed into bottom of pan.

Second layer of cookie crumbs being spread on top of chocolate ice-cream.

Vanilla ice-cream being spread on top of second layer of crumbs.