I SCREAM Ice Cream Cake

I bet you would scream too, if you saw a mouse scurrying to find cover in your apartment! UGHHHHH!!!!!!! Ok, I can't really talk about it right now, but such a sighting on the day that I made this cake for my son's birthday (and ANOTHER sighting right after I started this post!) is why I christened it I SCREAM Ice Cream Cake. Hopefully, you will instead be screaming with delight when you experience the painless process of making/assembling this. Or, you will scream out of amazed satisfaction when you sink your teeth into it. It is really tasty. (I wish I had an easy way of halving the sugar* for this baby, but since the beauty of this recipe is convenience, and making homemade ice cream isn't convenient, I leave the tinkering to you recipe nerds.)

This is the easiest dessert I have ever made, and certainly the easiest ice cream cake. And doesn't it look like to took some effort? (OK, this photo makes it look a little skiwampus, but it does look good in the other photos!)

Well, it didn't. The secret? Ice cream sandwiches! Ingenious, right? They make perfect layers, plus the wafers on the outside of the sandwich add some lovely textural interest, and taste so much better than a layer of frozen regular cake (which is kind of hard/dry/gross/unappealing). Combine those bad boys with tasty ice cream (whatever flavor suits your fancy), good hot fudge, and crumbled Oreo's, and now we're talkin'!

Speaking of customization, who knew how many flavors of ice cream sandwiches there are now? In the generic store brand alone, in addition to regular vanilla, I saw mint chocolate chip, cookies and cream, caramel swirl (what I chose for this), and even birthday cake flavored ice cream sandwiches! So, you have LOTS of options for both the kind of ice cream in the ice cream sandwiches, as well as the other ice cream you layer with it. Go to town!

I SCREAM Ice Cream Cake

Full Ingredients List:

1 box of 12 ice cream sandwiches, your choice of the variety

1.5 quart container of ice cream, your choice of the kind (you will have between 1/4-1/3 leftover for snitching)

1 box of generic-brand Oreo's, crushed into chunks and crumbs (I used just 2 of the 3 sleeves)

1 jar of hot fudge sauce, heated in 30 sec increments so that it is more pourable (there will be leftover)

Aluminum foil

Cover a square 8x8 in pan with aluminum foil, so that the foil hangs about 2" or more over edges on all four sides. 

Next, cover the bottom in a single layer of 

   ice cream sandwiches

cutting them if needed to fill the space. 

Cover the ice cream sandwich layer with a layer of

   hot fudge

and top that with a layer of

   crushed Oreo's.

Cover the Oreo layer with about 1/3 of your container of softened ice cream.

Repeat, changing the order a little**, so you layer:

   Ice cream sandwiches

   Hot fudge

   Softened ice cream

   Crushed Oreo's 

Cover and freeze for at least one hour. In my experience, there was no thawing necessary in order to be able to easily cut the cake (as is sometimes necessary for ice cream cake).

*It was a little too sweet for my current taste buds, but that didn't keep me from finishing my first piece or from eating five more pieces over the next several days!

**I changed the order just for asthletics, so that the top would be covered in the crushed cookies.