Mike's Ice-Cream Cake

For Mike's birthday, he likes to have ice-cream cake. But not just any ice-cream cake... He likes Gold Medal Ribbon ice-cream cake from Baskin Robbins. Only problem with that? We're looking at FORTY dollars for one silly cake! Really? For a cake?! So this year, to save some money, I decided to make it myself...with the condition that if it didn't turn out just as good as Baskin Robbins we'd go buy one for him anyway. Needless to say, I was under a lot of pressure!

First- the ice cream. Gold Medal Ribbon is a delicious blend of chocolate and vanilla ice-cream swirled with a band of gooey caramel and it's an exclusive Baskin Robbins flavor. But buying a gallon of ice-cream from Baskin Robbins was out of the question. So I decided to make my own version of the good stuff. I bought a gallon of chocolate ice-cream and a gallon of vanilla then made my own caramel.

Second - Assembling the "cake". First off, Mike was very specific in his request that his "cake" not have any actual cake in it. He's not a big cake person and that's probably why the Baskin Robbins cake is so appealing. They don't add cake! (At least not to the kind we've bought in years past.) So after making the caramel and while it was still warm, I took out the ice cream buckets that I'd purchased. I also took out a couple other buckets to assemble the cake into. One large for a big cake, and a smaller one for a smaller cake. Into each bucket I layered vanilla ice-cream, caramel, chocolate ice-cream, caramel and so on until both buckets were filled. I then put the lid onto each and put them into the freezer to freeze solid.

Third - Frosting the "cake". Baskin Robbins frosts their cake with a chocolate fudge frosting. Mike says it's more hot fudge than frosting, though. I actually thought of a few different frosting ideas to get this just right. My first idea was a frosting/Cool-Whip mixture to make frosting the cake super quick and easy. I don't know if you've ever actually frosted ice-cream, but I have. And in my experience, Cool-Whip frosting is by far the easiest to work with. Mike voted that down quick (quickly enough that I didn't even waste my ingredients to try it!) Next (and this one I actually did make) I tried a chocolate fudge frosting. It turned out SO good! But while it was "fudgey" tasting it just wasn't fudge. Ultimately... I just made fudge! And while, I must admit, the cake didn't look exactly gorgeous after it had been "frosted" it was definitely the right choice.

To frost the cake, I removed the bucket from the freezer, ran water along the outside and slid the ice cream out onto a platter. I then poured the still-warm fudge over the top, letting it drizzle down the sides of the cake. Then back to the freezer to let it freeze solid again.

The finished cake - Turned out delicious. And I have the official 'OK' to serve the big cake for his Birthday get-together on Saturday instead of an authentic Baskin Robbins cake. Wahoo! Oh and the total spent? For both the big & the little cake it cost me about $8 to put together. Yup. That's a savings of... $32!