We celebrated four family birthdays in May. We all love ice cream cakes, so that was our dessert of choice. Store-bought ice cream cakes can be pricey, so for the last birthday in the month, and because we had repeated the same brand of cake twice; I created an ice cream cake of my own.

The cake turned out sensational. Since I buy my favorite brands of ice cream when they are  on sale, the cake cost half of what I paid for the store bought cake, and fed double the people. Hooray!

Homemade Ice Cream Cake

Ingredients:
2 Cartons of Breyers Chocolate Chip Mint Ice Cream
1 pkg. Keebler Grasshopper Cookies
2 tbsp melted butter
Rainbow Sprinkles
Redi-Whip Whipped Cream in a can

These ingredient choices are easily changed to make your own custom cake. Half the ingredients will make a smaller cake. (8×8 pan)

Spray bottom of 9 x 13 pan with cooking spray. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Process grasshoppers to crumbs. Mix half the crumbs with melted butter and press into pan. Bake for about five minutes. The chocolate on the cookies will also help the crumbs stick together. Set remaining crumbs aside.

Let cool. While cooling, take out ice cream and let it soften until it is easily spread with a spatula or back of large spoon. Before I begin to spread the ice cream, I mix it around in a bowl to be sure it is ready to spread.

When the pan is completely cool you can begin to add the ice cream. I like to space out six to eight dollops on the crumbs, and then begin to spread it. If the ice cream doesn’t spread easily at this point, wait until it softens a bit more. If you try to spread while the ice cream is still too cold, you will break up your cookie crumb crust and create a big mess.

Sprinkle half the remaining cookie crumbs evenly on the top of this layer of ice cream. Gently press into ice cream with back of a spoon or spatula.

Repeat with the second carton of softened ice cream, spread carefully until you have an even top layer.

At this point I used two large, rectangular container lids I had on hand, and laid them on the top of the pan as a guide. I created diagonal lines of sprinkles, with a line of cookie crumbs alongside each stripe of sprinkles.

Wavy strips of whipped cream added a third decorative element. A border of whipped cream around the edge of the pan created a nice finished look.

Cover and freeze your finished cake for several hours. Just like a store-bought ice cream cake, let the cake thaw for about twenty minutes before you attempt to cut and serve. Enjoy!