Icecream cake; more of an assembly than actual "baking"

The most common childhood dessert in my memories are my moms homemade icecream cakes.  Often requested by others, this sweet treat is oh so decadent and beats DQ everytime. Requiring more to be assembled than baked at basically a third of the retail cost this is a recipe to keep.

One large cake:

10 cookies

2 tbsp melted butter

1.9L carton of icecream

1 jar of fudge topping

1 cool whip 

Decorations

After making a few cakes myself, I have gotten to know what size of icecream container perfectly fits my spring form pans.

I had been appointed to make my nephew Hurleys birthday cake since our mom is away. I pretty much appointed myself since I've watch my mom whip this up before and had taken notes. She definitly has it down to a science. 

My mom uses Oreo crumbs but I say when you have fresh delicious cookies on hand why not??

A little melted butter to bind

Blitz in the food processor

Pat down into a spring form pan

Wrap bottom in foil just to be sure and put crust in the freezer for about 5 minutes.

Meanwhile depending on the weather once you bring the icecream home from the store and put the rest of the groceries away it should be time. Unmold the icecream. 

My mom usually buys the cheapest tub of icecream. The plastic tub makes one large cake and one small cake.

Using about inch thick slices, place them on the crust layer using an offset spatula fill in the spaces and smooth the top.

Now for the filling! We use fudge and are very passionate about this. FUDGE; not be misguided by chocolate sauce however you can use whatever flavour at this point. 

Another layer of icecream

At this point my mom freezes it until firm before adding the cool whip layer and whatever decorations you prefer.  We use light cool whip but in thinking more about it; it's kind of like ordering a diet coke with a Big Mac meal!

The decorations on top usually reflect the filling on the inside. At hurleys request my sister bought smartie icecream and smarties.

Happy 3rd Birthday Hurley! 

I think uncle Jim was just as excited about the cake as the kids! And truth be told; I was too!

This size of cake can feed atleast 16 adults and it cost about $13 to make.

The other day I made my moms classic peanut buster parfait icecream cake; this one is my favourite!

I used GF homemade cookies for the crust.

Swirl icecream for the filling

The generous layer of Spanish salted peanuts on top of the fudge layer really makes this one something special!

With atleast a $20 savings to make this cake over buying it from DQ, as well as being able to completely customize the flavours; this is my go-to birthday cake!

Baking with sleeping beauty; fancy apple pie!

Aubrey's papa was coming over so we decided to make a dessert. What to make? We had a crisper full of apples that were a little wrinkly. This was the perfect time to transform them into applesauce or pie...pie it is!

I still had my mother-inlaws apple peeler so we got these prepped in a flash. Since these apples were a little soft Aubrey was able to peel them all on her own.

I just needed to make a few cuts and these were all ready to be seasoned. We added 3tbsp of flour, sugar, vanilla and cinnamon.

Here is the recipe I used as a guide.

I used my thawed no fail pastry that I had already in the fridge.

Now for the top of the pie; I thought we'd try something a little fancier.

I made strips and weaved them to make the top crust. I had never done this before but it was reminiscent of grade 3 art class.  Using the leftover dough Aubrey made leaves for decoration as well.

We mixed an egg yolk with a drizzle of water and used that mixture as an eggwash on top to give it a golden sheen once it's cooked.

We sprinkled the eggwash with a little white sugar.

We baked the pie according to the recipe above.

We impressed ourselves!!!

Now for the cleanup; it's helpful that my 3 year old loves to do the dishes!

Liam and I had a nice snuggle watching Aubrey clean.

Ta-da!!!!!

For something so delicious and comforting this was quite simple.

I highly reccommend having pastry made and in the freezer it makes that last minute dessert no problem and quiche is always a meal option!

No fail pastry recipe:

Jamie Oliver's rotolo baked pasta

Jamie Oliver has a new show on The Food Network called "Save With Jamie".  Wow; what an informative and interesting show; definitly worth taping. Last night we watch the episode on Ham and it also featured this vegetarian pasta using fresh lasagna sheets. I made a rendition of it by using his basic idea.

I made my own tomato sauce because I had these beautiful garden tomatoes that were nearing their last days; next time I will open a jar of sauce!

I sautéed onion, parsley, garlic, sage, rosemary and added in my diced tomatoes.

At this point I didn't think id have enough sauce so I added in a can of tomatoes with the juice.

I cooked this down for a few hours.

Once ready I used my trusty immersion blender to purée it and left the sauce on a simmer with the lid on.

Once this was ready I poured the sauce into my large Dutch oven so it filled the bottom of the pot coming up nearly half ways. I set this aside.

The vegetables I decided to use we're baby eggplant, zucchini, spinach/kale mix and sauteed mushrooms.

I roasted the diced baby eggplant and zucchini with olive oil and rosemary seasalt for 20 minutes on 350F until tender.

I quickly sautéed my spinach kale mix with olive oil.

I pulsed these items together in the food processor and set this mixture aside.

Separately I blitz mushrooms I had previously sautéed and had in the freezer. I set this aside separately as well.

I grated light mozerella cheese and put it in a bowl.

I lined up all of my fillings and got my fresh pasta sheets ready.

On a clean surface I laid out the pasta sheets and layered the fillings.

Spinach, eggplant and zucchini mixture

Sautéed mushroom

Feta cheese

Mozerella cheese

I then rolled them and cut them into four equal pieces.

I placed these all in the sauce making a honeycomb like shape.

I topped this with cheese (I should of added more!!!) and baked it in a 350F oven for 45 minutes.

It turned out delicious; surprisingly even  the kids ate it up. 

Next time I wouldn't of added so much sauce. If I followed the recipe regarding quantities it probably would of been perfect. I also would be interested to try this with a meat of some sort; crumbled sausage or sautéed ground beef but this was a vegetarians dream dish for sure!

I will definitly make this again, the options are really endless. Any in season produce you have in your fridge would probably work. The fresh lasagna sheets were so tasty, they had a great bite to them.  You can find these lasagna sheets with the fresh pasta located in the deli section of your local grocer, what a nice change from the normal pasta texture.

I made this quite complex making my own sauce and all but next time I'll use Jamies recipe and cut the prep time down by two-thirds! 

I did find the time to make cookies though....I always have time for dessert...priorities people!