Ice Cream Cake

I love ice cream. And I love anything crunchy. Therefore, ice cream cake has always seemed like it would be a perfect dessert for me. However, I'm generally not a fan of store-bought ice cream cakes. They just seem to be missing something. So I decided to make an ice cream cake of my own. I got a base recipe from AllRecipes.com that I used to help me decide how to make the cake.



Ice Cream Cake, adapted from Chocolate Chip Cookie Ice Cream Cake

Cookies (from the back of the Nestlé Tollhouse chocolate chips bag):
1 1/8 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter, softened
6 tbsp granulated sugar
6 tbsp brown sugar
1/2 tsp vanila extract
1 egg
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate morsels

1. Preheat oven to 375 F.

2. Combine flour, baking soda and salt in small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract in large mixer bowl until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in morsels. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.

3. Bake for 11-13 minutes. You want the cookies to be on the crunchy side because they're going to be crushed up to make the base of the cake.
Makes 30 cookies.

Cake
18 chocolate chip cookies
1/4 cup butter or margarine, melted
1 cup hot fudge topping
2 quarts ice cream (I used Edy's Slow Churned Fudge Tracks)
1 cup french vanilla whipped cream, or other flavor if desired
16 maraschino cherries

1. Crush 10 of the cookies to make crumbs. Combine crumbs with melted butter/margarine and place into the bottom of a 9-inch springform pan or pie plate. Stand remaining cookies around edge of pan. Spread 3/4 cup fudge topping over crust (You probably want to heat it first...I didn't but I feel like that would make it a lot easier). Freeze 15 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, soften 1 quart of ice cream in the microwave or on a countertop. After crust has chilled, spread ice cream over fudge topping. Freeze for 30 minutes.

3. Scoop remaining ice cream into balls and arrange over first ice cream layer. Freeze until firm, 4 hours or overnight. To serve, garnish with remainder of fudge topping, whipped cream, an cherries (I also added sprinkles).