Happy National Ice Cream Cake Day! I’m not necessarily a huge fan of ice cream cakes, but it’s a fun treat every once in a while. Plus, for my friend’s birthday she thought it would be fun to do a mash-up between an ice-cream cake and a hot fudge sundae so I did a little research and found the recipes below and decided to create my own dessert.

She’s gluten-free, so for the cake I decided to try this gluten-free cake recipe from King Arthur. It was very simple to throw together and follows the typical cake instructions of mixing the dry ingredients, wet ingredients, and then combining. Since I wanted to make an ice cream cake I poured these into two 8 inch cake pans with some parchment paper in the bottom so they didn’t stick. I let these bake, cool, then I went ahead and trimmed this down to the size needed. I ended up popping these layers into the freezer (after wrapping really well) since I wasn’t sure when I’d be assembling the cake.

When it came time for assembling I took one of the layers and put it in the bottom of a spring form pan. Then I took two pints of ice cream (chocolate and vanilla) and once it was a little soft spread it over the bottom cake layer. Since she also tries to do dairy-free as well, I used So Delicious Dairy Free Cashew Milk Ice Cream. I used the other cake layer as the top and then wrapped the entire spring form pan and popped it back in the freezer.

About 30 minutes before we were ready to eat dessert I quickly made some whipped topping and the hot fudge sauce. Homemade whipped topping makes such a difference and this is our favorite hot fudge sauce! I pulled the cake out of the freezer about ten minutes before we wanted to eat so I could finish decorating it and let it soften up a little so it was easier to cut. I knew we wouldn’t need a ton of hot fudge so I only made a half batch which was the perfect amount to pour on top of the cake. Then I piped the homemade whipped topping on the cake and garnished with a few maraschino cherries.

I’m not normally a fan of ice-cream cakes, but this was really good. I tasted the cake after it had cooled and could tell it was gluten-free, but when eaten with the ice-cream, hot fudge, and whipped topping I honestly couldn’t tell a difference. I’d actually never had cashew ice-cream before either and thought it tasted really good as well. You could probably easily swap out the cake recipe if you wanted one with gluten or vanilla instead of chocolate, as well as using whatever ice-cream you want.

Very very good and was a fun treat to celebrate a birthday! It’s a little time-consuming, but easy to make ahead of time and it freezes really well. We even cut some pieces and wrapped them individually to eat later and even the whipped topping froze well so can be eaten as a nice treat later as well.

Baking Ease	9
Time Spent	8
Taste	10
Visual	10

Recipe Used: King Arthur (Cake) & Smitten Kitchen (Hot Fudge/Whipped Topping)