My brother in-law always asks for ice cream cake for his birthday. Usually, he wants cookies and cream, but this year he asked if I could make an M&M cake. I figured it couldn’t be too hard so I said yes. (I’m crazy brave like that.) Since I know he loves Oreos and cookies and cream would be his second choice, I decided to make an Oreo crust for his M&M ice cream cake.
The cake was a huge hit. Everyone raved about it. So much so that I made a second one the following week.
The cool thing about ice cream cakes (pun intended) is they’re easy to make and pretty fast too! You simply mix a bunch of pre-made goodies, pour them over a crust and freeze. Normally I’m all crunchy-healthy, but when it comes to birthdays, we go all out…
My first ice cream cake – my 15th birthday. Photo by Susan Mueller
My First Ice Cream Cake
The first time I had a homemade ice cream cake was for my 15th birthday. The amazing woman who is now my mother in-law made me a pink cake out of strawberry ice cream. I’d had something we call Mississippi Mud Cake (vanilla ice cream sandwiched between two layers of chocolate cake and drowned in hot fudge sauce) as a child, but I’d never had a real ice cream cake. I had to know how to make it, and Susan generously shared her ‘recipe.’
Since then, I’ve made lots of ice cream cakes for family, and every year I make one for my husband’s little brother. I love that this family tradition started before my husband and I even started courting and that we have continued it for well over a decade. I couldn’t help but dig out this old photo to share…you’ll have to forgive the dark grainy image; we didn’t have fancy cameras back then. 😉
How to Make an Ice Cream Cake
You can make any flavor of ice cream cake you want; the base ingredients remain the same.
You’ll need a crust. For this cake, we used Oreo cookies, but for other flavors of ice cream we use graham cracker crumbs, a little sugar, and butter. You do have to bake the crust, but not for long!
The other must-haves are a container of your favorite ice cream and a regular sized bowl of Cool Whip. After that, it’s up to you!
Page Two – Our M&M Ice Cream Cake
This was AMAZING!! I made this for my son’s 9th birthday party because he was really wanting an ice cream cake and the ones at DQ are just so expensive. This was inexpensive and tasted amazing! Everyone raved over it and he and his friends went back for seconds. Thank you for posting this!!!
Yes, I’m the same Liz from before and I just wanted to say we are still using this recipe! The only modification we’ve made is with the fudge on top we also add caramel. We’ve shared this recipe at every family gathering and there is never leftovers.