For the last five years, Tavis and I have celebrated our birthdays with our good friends Jenn and Lee. Tavis and Jenn’s birthdays are in January, and Lee’s and my birthday are in April. Our January Babies and April Babies events have become a special tradition, always involving a delectable home cooked meal and a special order Dairy Queen ice cream cake that has “less fudge and more crunch” (we find the fudge to be a tad sweet).
For the uninitiated, DQ ice cream cakes are made with layers of vanilla and chocolate soft serve, dark, thick fudge, and chocolate cookie crunch. They put me in an incredible happy mood. Since I’ve embarked on a year of ice cream making, I figured I’d be given some latitude if I deviated from the norm of purchasing a DQ cake for April Babies this year and, instead, *made* an ice cream cake — one with no fudge and all crunch, to satisfy my recent Oreo cookie craving.
This recipe takes a bit of planning. Make both ice cream custards on Day 1, crank the ice cream and assemble the cake on Day 2, serve the ice cream cake on Day 3. Patience, patience, I assure you it is worth it!
No Fudge All Crunch Ice Cream Cake
1 cup of finely crushed Oreo cookies (about 12 cookies, whirled around in a small food processor)
1 recipe vanilla ice cream*
1 recipe chocolate ice cream*
10 coarsely chopped Oreo cookies
* Since we were going to be eating oodles of cake, I lightened up both recipes by substituting whole milk for the whipping cream (no change to the amounts of half and half). If you prefer an ultra premium ice cream cake, you can stick with the original recipes.
