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Easy Homemade Ice Cream Cake Recipes (Pictures Included)

Do you love ice cream cake??? I know our family does. I’m going to share my easy homemade ice cream cake recipes (pictures included) with you today. Making an ice cream cake is EASY – no baking required! Plan ahead – making an ice cream cake takes at least 24 hours.Homemade Ice Cream Cake Recipes Cake

What you’ll need

2 half gallons of ice cream
1 stick of butter
3 dozen homemade cookies or 1 large box of store bought cookies
8 cups of whipped cream
Your favorite dessert toppings (caramel, chocolate sauce, etc)
Spring foam pan

My Favorite Ice Cream Cake Recipes

Basic chocolate and vanilla ice cream with chocolate cookie crust
Oreo cookie ice cream with oreo cookie crust
Mint chocolate chip ice cream with chocolate chip crust
Cookies N Cream Ice cream and vanilla ice cream layers with Chocolate chip cookie crust
Peanut butter chocolate ice cream with peanut butter cookies

The list is endless – pick your favorite ice creams and mix with cookies!010 (2)

You have one of two cake options:

  1. Make the ice cream cake in a 1/4 sheet cake pan
  2. Make a 2 layer round cake

I’m going to make a round ice cream cake with two layers in this tutorial

Making your ice cream cake

  1. Take one container of ice cream from the freezer and put it in the fridge. You want your ice cream to get a little soft but not melted. Just enough so its flexible enough to be pressed into your pan.
  2. Cut your butter in half and melt one half in the microwave or on your stovetop. If using the microwave cover it with a paper towel so butter does not splatter all over your microwave. Typically mine melts in our microwave under 2 minutes.

Ice Cream Cake Recipes - cut butter in half

Ice Cream Cake Recipes - melt butter in microwave

3. Take your cookies and grind them up in the food processor or put them in a gallon sized plastic bag and smash them up. This can be done to your preference, if you like bigger cookie chunks then smash them up less. I use a mini food processor because it is fast and easy.

Ice Cream Cake Recipes - Cookies

4. Now prepare your spring foam pan. I separate the two pieces of the spring foam pan and lay two pieces of plastic wrap on the bottom piece and then put the top piece back on. If you are doing a two layer cake spring foam pans must be used – it would be very hard to get the cake layer out of a regular cake pan. Being able to take the sides off is key. If you have two spring foam pans of the same size, then it is even faster since you can do both layers at once.

Homemade Ice Cream Cake Recipes - line spring foam pan

Homemade Ice cream cake Recipes - line spring foam pan

5. Mix your butter and cookie pieces together. Then spread on the bottom of your spring foam pan. Add your favorite topping such as caramel or chocolate sauce. Put it in the freezer for 20 minutes until your cookie layer is hard.

Homemade Ice Cream Cake Recipes - Making cookie crust

6. Now add your softened but still frozen ice cream. Spread it out until it is as smooth as you can get it, cover with aluminum foil or plastic wrap, and put it back in the freezer to get hard. I usually do this in the evening and freeze overnight.  I only have one pan this size, so I do one layer per day. You could easily do one layer in the morning and another in the afternoon and have ice cream cake by dinnertime. Of if you have two pans, just knock out two layers at once.

Homemade Ice Cream Cake Recipe - ice cream layer

Homemade Ice Cream Cake Recipes

7. Once the layer has frozen back up, let it sit out for a few minutes and open the side of your spring foam pan and remove the layer. I wrap it up in plastic wrap and aluminum foil.

Homemade Ice Cream Cake Recipes - opening pan

Homemade Ice cream Cake Recipes - removing layer

Homemade Ice Cream Cake Recipe Layer

8. Now you can frost your 2 layers of cake, make sure you are using frosting or whipped cream in between your two layers. I use a mix of homemade icing and whipped cream – just whip them together. You can use plain whipped cream, icing, or whatever else you wanted. I’ve also baked a cake in the same spring foam pan and used it in between the ice cream cake layers. There are so many options.

Homemade Ice Cream Cake Recipes Frosted Cake

Homemade Ice Cream Cake Recipes Cake

Give it a try and I know you’ll be surprised how easy it is and how great it turns out. No baking required. The best part is you can completely customize the flavors. I’d love to hear how it turns out and what flavors you picked!!

8 Comments

  1. meherbani

    I enjoyed reading your article on how to make your own ice cream. The cake shown on your site looks amazing!

    I love ice cream and have thought of trying my hand at making my own. My grandkids would love learning too.

    Can you recommend a good place to buy the food processor you show in your photo?

    thanks!

    Reply
    • admin

      Thanks so much for stopping by! You will have to let me know how the grandkids like their ice cream cake.

      I received my mini food processor as a gift – its available on Amazon for under $40. Here is the link to the exact one I have.

      Reply
  2. Susan

    Hello Shannon, What a nice site you have! I liked the part about making your own Vanilla extract using Vodka.
    Vanilla is so expensive that I will look into making my own. Also liked using baking soda to clean stove tops. I always us a window scraper with a razor blade to get the majority off first…then clean. But as you said…be careful not to scratch the glass. Also, you take very nice photos to include with your posts. That helps explain things. Thanks again

    Reply
    • admin

      Thanks for stopping by Susan and for your kind words 🙂

      Reply
  3. Ray

    Hi Shannon, thanks for the great recipe! I bake cakes but don’t particularly enjoy baking. I can’t control the heat & consistency… Now obviously ice cream cake doesn’t involve baking, and yes it does look so easy! I’ll definitely try this one. I guess I can use any ice cream, such as chocolate?
    Thanks again, good job!
    Ray

    Reply
    • admin

      Ray it is easy and always a crowd pleaser, I have had people ask me to make one for their birthdays. You can do any flavor of ice cream you can imagine, think double cchocolate fudge ripple 🙂

      Reply
  4. Holly

    Well I’m sorry to say it Shannon but you are really a very bad influence! Ice cream is my biggest enemy as I love it so much – any time or anywhere! Ice cream cake – dangerous, however I will be trying your recipe/instructions for ice cream cake. Which is your favourite may I ask? Mine is Ben & Jerry’s Minter Wonderland and also Cherry Garcia! Do you make the cookies yourself as well or do you buy them ready made?

    Reply
    • Shannon

      I cream cake is the best invention ever!! My favorite is chocolate chip cookie dough and vanilla layers. Unfortunately I my stomach no longer tolerates dairy so I make them for my family. It makes me sooo sad! As for the cookies, sometimes we make our own and other times I buy them from the store, just depends on how much time I have. Let me know how your ice cream cake turns out.

      Reply

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