5 Layer Ice Cream Cake

Check out this FUN Birthday Cake! Yesterday, Sept 23, was my husband Randolph's birthday. Every year I make him a birthday cake and this year he wanted an ice cream cake! I had never made an ice cream cake before but wanted to give it a try. How can you go wrong with Ice Cream & Cake...my 2 favorite things!


Here is the end result...5 layers of pure sugary goodness with chocolate cream on top! So let's start at the very beginning and see how this HUGE cake came to life!


From scratch chocolate cake batter with egg white & sugar mixture.


Folding in the foamy egg whites.


The batter is ready, lets get these cakes in the oven!


Randolph's ice cream request: Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough...can't go wrong here!


Preparing the ice cream layers for the cake. Line two 9" baking pans with foil and then spread ice cream into prepared pans to freeze until firm.


Ice cream layers are ready to go into the freezer to firm up for a few hours.



Three layers of chocolate cake ready to be wrapped in foil and placed in the freezer as well to get firm. I let all 5 layers (3 cake & 2 ice cream) stay in the freezer over night and assembled the cake the following day.

Time to assemble....

Layer 1: Chocolate Cake


Layer 2: Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream


Layer 3: Chocolate Cake



Layer 4: Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream


Layer 5: Chocolate Cake



But wait there is more....a chocolate cream layer to go on top....now this is getting out of control!


Viola...the moment Randolph has anxiously been waiting for...his birthday cake is ready to eat!



Birthday boy doing the honors of cutting into his first slice of cake.


I can't wait to get a taste...


Looks delicious!


I think between the 2 of us we just cut out a fourth of the cake....how can you resist this tower of chocolate!


Going in for the first bite....YUM! Happy Birthday Randolph!

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Walnut Cookies

My husband has been asking me to make him some chocolate chip oatmeal cookies for a few weeks now so I decided to try a new recipe for this batch of cookies. The recipe I used is from Williams-Sonoma, Essentials of Baking book. This book is filled with all kinds of fantastic baked goods from homeade breads, pastries, pies, cakes and cookies.

Oatmeal is a commodity in my house. Not a day goes by that I don't fix my husband and I each a cup of oatmeal for breakfast every Monday-Friday with 2 large scoops of brown sugar on top. YUM! I love oatmeal so much that I even go to bed at night looking forward to my breakfast the next morning! It had been a while since I had made oatmeal cookies so I was excited to see how these would turn out.


Are you craving oatmeal yet...if so here is the recipe for you to make these cookies!

Old-Fashioned Oatmeal Cookies (Essentials of Baking, Williams-Sonoma)

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
• 2 cups raisins (instead of raisins, I substituted 1 cup of chocolate chips & 1 cup of chopped walnuts)

Directions:
-Preheat oven to 350 degrees
-In a bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. Set aside.
-Using an electric mixer, combine the butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar. Beat on medium speed until smooth.
-Add the eggs and vanilla and beat on low speed until well blended.
-Add the dry ingredients and rolled oats and beat until incorporated. Mix in the raisins.
-Drop the dough by heaping tablespoons onto baking sheets, spacing the cookies 3 inches apart. -Bake the cookies, 1 sheet at a time, until they are evenly light brown and the tops feel firm when lightly touched, 15-20 minutes.
-Let the cookies cool on the baking sheets for 5 minutes, then transfer them to wire racks to cool completely.
-Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days.



The cookies baked up perfect, light and fluffy. The cinnamon definitely added a nice punch of flavor. I had never tried cinnamon in oatmeal cookies before so it was a pleasing surprise when I tasted them.


3 dozen Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Walnut Cookies ready to be eaten...ENJOY!

Alphabet Soup & Animal Cupcakes!

This weekend was my friend Andrea's baby shower, so what better way to celebrate than with some CUTE cupcakes! This is Andrea's first baby and she is having a boy, Drew. I came up with the idea for the cupcake designs from the nursery bedding Andrea registered for called "Alphabet Soup" - a patchwork quilt of all the letters of the alphabet and various animals.



I found these adorable toothpick cupcake animal toppers of zebras, tigers, lions and elephants at Michaels and I thought these would be perfect for my theme. Next I needed to figure out how to create toppers for the letters of the alphabet...



So where better to get inspiration from when creating crafts, than Martha Stewart. I found a pack of baby boy themed paper and alphabet stickers in the Martha Stewart section at Michaels, and from there got the idea to make my own cupcake toppers. I also bought a 1 1/2" scalloped punch to create a cute edge for my paper cutouts. Are you ready to see the cupcake toppers come to life...these are going to be cute!



Cupcake Topper Supplies:
-decorative paper
-1 1/2" scalloped punch
-toothpicks
-double sided tape
-alphabet stickers


Ta Da! Look how adorable these toppers turned out...every letter A-Z.


Then it was time to ice the cupcakes...all 49 of them. My quilt pattern called for a 7 x 7 display of cupcakes using blue, green & brown to incorporate the primary colors used in the baby bedding.


After icing all the cupcakes, it was time to set them up in the 7 x 7 pattern of alternating colors green, brown & blue before adding the cupcake toppers!


Alphabet Soup Cupcake Quilt is complete!


In addition to the cupcakes I also made brownie pops dipped in white chocolate and colored with blue food coloring to hand out as favors for all the shower guests. I got this idea from Bakerella and had previously made them as red velvet cake pops. This time around I decided to try them as brownies and the combination of the chocolate brownie and white chocolate coating was delicious!