How to make an easy ice cream cake at home

I’m afraid the days of me baking the children cakes for their birthdays might be over. Both of their birthdays are in November and it’s hot and they’re busy with after school activities. They only ever eat the icing and decorations so it’s a waste of time and money. From now on it’s an ice cream cake so I’m going to show you how to make an easy ice cream cake at home.

It really couldn’t be any easier. The only trouble I have is that in our hot summer, it’s melting as soon as you put it on a plate so you’ve got to be quick. To buy an ice cream cake from the store could be anywhere from $10 PLUS and you control just how big to make it and what flavour to make.

Easy Ice Cream Cake

First job is to choose your ice cream. I prefer a better known brand as the cheaper brands are more water than cream so they won’t refreeze as nice. I asked my son, who’s 10th birthday it was coming up, and he chose a Cookies’n’Cream flavour. Leave it out on the bench to soften.

Next choose your add-ins. I don’t like to buy special candy or ingredients when I’m cooking, rather opting for using what I have but it was a special birthday so I let him choose his favourite chocolate bars. You can add anything you like. 

• Fresh, frozen or canned fruit
• Chocolate chips
• Leftover candy
• Nuts
• Cookie dough
• Crushed cookies
• Nut butters (like Nutella or peanut butter)
• Crumbled cake
• Sprinkles or 100s & 1000s

Next step is to choose your mould. It doesn’t have to be anything special. I used a cake pan. It can be a plastic container, a baking dish, plastic or silicon mould, just about anything that can be lined with plastic cling wrap.

Pour the contents of the melted ice cream into a mixing bowl and add all your extras. I also found a few cookies in the cookie container so crushed them up and added them.

Pour it into the mould. You can also add a swirl of ice cream topping if you like or something like fruit puree or melted chocolate.

Ready for the Freezer

Cover with plastic cling film and return to the freezer, preferably overnight.

When ready to serve, turn onto a plate and remove the plastic cling wrap. I added chocolate shell topping and more crushed chocolate bar to serve. It was really yummy. The best part was everyone ate this. No cake wasted and it was easy for me. The premium ice cream was on special for $4.50 for 2 litres and the chocolate bars were $2 so for $6.50 I got this huge ice cream cake which lasted quite a few nights. I know a cheap version of an ice cream cake from one of our supermarkets is about $15 and it doesn’t even taste nice.

 

Save yourself some time and energy for your next celebration cake with this easy ‘make at home’ ice cream cake. Your kids will love it!

Recipe

• quantity of premium ice cream in your favourite flavour
• suggested add-in ingredients (as above)
• extra chocolate shell or ice cream topping
• extra candy or nuts for decorating

1. Leave the ice cream out to melt.
2. Pour into a mixing bowl.
3. Add your extra flavourings.
4. Return the melted ice cream mixture to a mould which has been lined with plastic cling film.
5. Cover with plastic cling film and return to the freezer until required, preferably overnight.
6. Top with extra chocolate shell topping or ice cream topping and candy or nuts.

16 ways to reuse ice cream containers

Save your money and reuse what you already have. Don’t waste it on new plastics from the store. These containers are perfectly okay to reuse many ways around the home. Here are 16 ways to reuse ice cream containers and how you can decorate them.

Save Money and Reuse

I was at a dollar store on the weekend with my husband picking up some ribbon and a packet of paper straws. I went up aisles and aisles of plastics and junk wrapped in plastic and wondered what did we ever do before dollar stores? Oh, that’s right. We reused things from around the house like biscuit tins, cardboard and cereal boxes and ice cream containers.

I keep a lot of things in ice cream containers like food, hair ties, craft items, medicine and ointments, bits and pieces, kid’s games, use them for gardening and they’re the best thing for the children when they need to vomit (sorry to mention that but they are).

Different examples

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DIY Strawberry Sundae Ice Cream Cone

If you’ve been to the “Ekka”, Queensland’s agricultural show, you’ll know about the Strawberry Sundae. Tomorrow is the beginning of the great Brisbane tradition, the Royal National Agricultural Show (like the State Fair), what we like to call the “Ekka”. Here’s how you can make you own DIY Strawberry Sundae Ice Cream Cone.

According to the Ekka website:

The first ‘Royal’ Show was held in 1921, when the Association was granted the prefix under warrant from His Majesty King George V. Since then, the shortened name “Ekka” has replaced “Exhibition” in the Queensland vernacular, indicating locals’ affection for the Show. Ekka has since been held every year with only two exceptions. In 1919, Brisbane suffered a Spanish influenza epidemic, and in 1942 during wartime the Showgrounds were used as a staging depot for troops moving north.

 

I grew up not too far from the showgrounds and we went every year as kids. You could always guarantee August to be windy, warm and dry but cool in the evenings so we’d pop in extra coats and afghan rugs to the cloak room while we walked and walked and walked with Mum and Dad looking at all the exhibits. We’d return to pick up our coats in the evening when we made our way to Machinery Hill for dinner of hot dogs and watch the fireworks before catching the bus home.

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I particularly loved the fruit and vegetable grower’s displays, the dogs, cakes and other homemade goodies, the ring events like sheep dog trials and evening fireworks, Dagwood dogs, show bags and my most favourite of all, the Strawberry Sundae Ice Cream.

The 2011 EKKA at the RNA showgrounds.

August is the start of strawberry season and what better way to feature them in this simple delight of strawberry flavoured ice cream, a blob of fresh cream, topped with a strawberry and filled with chopped strawberries in the cone. I haven’t been to the Ekka for a few years (I’m lucky my kids don’t know about it and we live a little way out from the showgrounds now) so I couldn’t tell you how much they are but making them this cheat’s way will satisfy that little craving and take you back to the days of your youth, or it did mine.

Ekka (c.1936) – enjoying the spoils. Things never change. Show bags were free in these days and known as ‘sample’ bags.
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The Ekka in the 1950’s (my vintage was about 20 years later but some show bags were still free in those days. Also notice how everyone is holding hands. One of the worst places to get lost.
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The Chief Taste Tester’s after school treat. His favourite fruit, he tells me, is strawberries.

DIY Strawberry Sundae Ice Cream Cone

• quantity of fresh strawberries
• quantity of vanilla ice cream
• ice cream cones
• fresh cream

Chop strawberries using a stick blender or food processor until pureed. (You could pass through a strainer to remove the seeds.)

Mix with softened vanilla ice cream. Place strawberry ice cream into suitable moulds to fit cones. (I used a small plastic cup.)

 

Return to freezer until firm.

Fill the ice cream cone with fresh strawberries.

Remove the ice cream from its mould.

Top ice cream with fresh cream and another fresh strawberry.

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Maybe if I was more financial and had money to burn, I would take my kids. What’s not to love about the thrill of a machine giving you whiplash (a ride), some shonky “carni” (sideshow alley operator) taking your $5 to throw a couple ping pong balls down a clown’s throat to win a 10 cent stuffed toy that’s bound for the rubbish bin, the crowds, more chances of picking up colds and flus and the kids wanting to spend dollars and dollars on show bags and not wanting to see one thing that you’re interested in. I think I might go and leave them at home!

Brisbane RNA Show (the “Ekka“)

DIY Choc Top Ice Creams

Saturday night is “Movie Night” at our house, every week. We’ve probably only missed 2 in the last 2 years and even then, the kids still watch a movie whether it’s at my Mum’s or with the baby sitter here at home. It’s such a great family tradition, cheap and cheerful and we look forward to it all week, often discussing which movie we’re going to watching during the week. We also have homemade popcorn and maybe share a small packet of lollies.

Tonight was “Megamind” featuring Will Farrell. I’d hardly call it ‘ice cream weather’ here in Brisbane at the moment but we all felt like an ice cream and I thought why not go the whole ‘cinematic experience’ and have a good old fashioned Choc Top, like you get in the cinema. It’s just basically a ganache made with melted chocolate and a bit of butter and then a sprinkling of whatever takes your fancy. The kids had ‘sprinkles’ and the husband and I had flaked almonds.

At Home Choc Top Ice Creams

100gm chocolate, melted
50gm buttered, melted
ice cream
ice cream cones
sprinkles, nuts, crushed chocolate bars etc

(You can increase the amount of chocolate and butter according to how many ice creams you want to coat.)

Break up chocolate and cube butter to similarly sized pieces. Melt in microwave for a minute. Stir. If not melted, continue to melt at short bursts of 20 seconds at a time until all melted. Spoon chocolate mixture over ice cream cones filled with ice cream. Top with your favourite topping.  (Tip: If you’ve got the time, make the cones up with ice cream and return to the freezer for 15-30 mins so ice cream goes really hard. It’s going to melt slightly once you put the warm chocolate on it.)

You can fill the cone with a little of the chocolate mixture too, for a little more indulgence or if you have waffle cones at home, try to recreate your favourite “Drumstick“.