ESPRESSO AND VANILLA ICE CREAM CAKE WITH OREOS AND FUDGE

PINI have eaten such an insane amount of milk (in the form of ice cream) during this pregnancy! Every week I’ve told myself, you’ve really got to stop eating so much ice cream, hot fudge sundaes, frozen yogurt, Blizzards… you get the idea. Yet, every week I couldn’t seem to resist just one little bit… so here we are at the end of the pregnancy and I gave up. In fact, I’m eating ice cream right now.

I have been craving a Dairy Queen Ice Cream Cake the whole nine months. But, being me, I decided to make ice cream cakes with an Oreo crust myself. My best friend and her son have birthday’s a day a part, and they were having a party! The perfect excuse to experiment. I made a vanilla ice cream cake for the kids and an espresso ice cream cake for the grown ups! I headed into the endeavor having absolutely no idea what I was doing, but also with the knowledge that with ingredients like Oreos, fudge, ice cream and whipped cream, I really couldn’t do anything too disastrous. The results were, “I’ll have a third slice”, kind of amazing.

This recipe makes one cake.

ESPRESSO AND VANILLA ICE CREAM CAKE WITH OREOS AND FUDGE

Ingredients.
2 half gallons of ice cream, vanilla or espresso
fudge sauce (recipe below)
2 packages Oreo cookies
1/4 cup melted butter
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 tablespoons confectioner’s sugar
2 cups heavy cream, divided
1/2 stick unsalted butter
1/4 cup light corn syrup
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, plus more for serving
fine salt

Directions.
Pour one package of the Oreo cookies into a large bowl. Using your hand and a potato masher, crush the Oreos up into small chunks. Set aside.

The fudge sauce recipe is from Martha Stewart. For the fudge sauce, in a medium pot, combine corn syrup, 1/4 cup cream, 1/2 stick unsalted butter, 2/3 cup granulated sugar, cocoa, and pinch of salt; bring to a boil, whisking, over medium-high. Remove from heat and let fudge sauce cool.

Grease a 9×9 inch baking dish with vegetable oil. Line the pan completely with plastic wrap. Remove one half gallon of the ice cream from the freezer and allow it to soften a little bit while you make the Oreo crust. In a food processor, blend the second package the Oreos until they are completely crumbled and fine. With the food processor running, slowly add in 1/4 cup melted butter. Pour the crushed Oreo mixture into the dish. Spread evenly throughout the dish and press down firmly to compact the crust. Drizzle a bit of the fudge sauce over the crust.

By now your ice cream should be perfect to work with. Working with about one cup at a time, scoop the ice cream into the dish. The crust is delicate so be careful not to disturb it. Using your hands, gently spread and press the ice cream until you have about a one inch layer. Put the ice cream back in the freezer. Top this layer with a good coating of fudge sauce, and a handful or two or the crushed Oreos. Place the cake in the freezer and allow it to set for about 10 minutes. Repeat the layers: ice cream, fudge, Oreos. Finally do one last layer of ice cream and fudge. Put it in the freezer for one hour. Then, once the fudge is pretty set, cover with greased plastic wrap and freeze for 8-24 hours.

For serving…
Using a mixer, whip your remaining one cup of heavy cream into whipping cream. Gently add in the vanilla and confectioner’s sugar. Set aside.

When the cake is completely set, remove it from the freezer. Invert the cake on a large plate. Lay a hot washcloth over the bottom of the dish to release the cake. Remove the plastic wrap from the bottom of the cake. Place your serving platter on the bottom of the cake. Carefully flip over the cake, using both the serving platter and plate to hold it in place. Remove the plate, peel off the plastic wrap. Top with whipped cream, spread evenly about like frosting. Pop back in the freezer for 30 minutes.

Finally, using a sifter, dust the cake with cocoa powder. If you want, cut out a shape or letter from a piece of paper, lay it gently on the cake, and dust over it to create the W and K effect like in my photo.

PRINTABLE RECIPE.
ESPRESSO AND VANILLA ICE CREAM CAKE