Ice Cream Cake

We've just made it most of the way through March Madness. It happens around this time every year; four of our six children have birthdays in March and then there's English mother's Day and our wedding anniversary. I've also had a charity quilt to finish and a DVD to complete editing. Exciting times.

I have a fantastic recipe for ice cream cake I'd like to share. If you have small children you may have noticed that no matter how much time or money you spend on a birthday cake, children rarely eat it. Perhaps they get down a bit of the icing but most of the cake goes in  the bin. This ice cream cake is the exception to this rule. It always disappears completely. I have never thrown any of it in the bin! It is relatively inexpensive, simple to make, fun to decorate and easy to adapt to the tastes and interests of each child.

You will need a spring form cake pan, several different kinds of ice cream or sorbet and a topping of your choice. For this version, I've chosen caramel and mint chocolate chip ice cream and raspberry sorbet. It's a good idea to start the day before the party, but if needed you'll manage the morning before.

First leave the ice cream out for 20 minutes so it begins to soften. Then choose the bottom layer and spoon it in the pan and spread it around. Get it nice and smooth and then rinse the spoon and choose the next layer.

I've gone for the raspberry sorbet here mainly for the colour. Spoon it in then spread it around.

Rinse the spoon in warm water and start the next layer. Here I'm using mint chocolate chip.For this cake I kept it to three, but other years I've used more layers. Use as many as you like then put some cling film on top and pop it into the freezer.It will need over night or most of the day to re-freeze properly.

Just before you're ready to serve the cake, take it out of the freezer and run a knife around the edge. Then release the spring and slip off the edge of the pan.











Now you're ready to add the topping. I've chosen a chocolate cracklin topping. It's soft til it hits the cold ice cream then the cold makes it set.

For this cake, I've just added candles but other years, depending on the age and interests of the kids, I've added anything from real flowers which look lovely, to all sorts of plastic figures like snow white and the seven dwarves,  bat man,  star wars figures or horses, what ever makes their little hearts sing. A trip through the dishwasher makes the plastic nice and clean and the cake is unique, tailored to the particular child, delicious and enjoyed by all!