Almond Joy Cake with Coconut Ice Cream

I feel that everyone has their place in their family- and my place is firmly plopped in front of the stove.  Before I came along, homemade cakes simply didn't exist at my in-laws.  Birthdays were celebrated with a grocery store sheet cake and store bought ice cream.  I'm not sure when it began, but early in my relationship with my husband, I showed up to a birthday with a homemade cake.  Because that's what I do.  Cake is wonderful and every opportunity to make one should be capitalized on.  Not making a birthday cake would be like letting summer go by without a barbecue- or Christmas wrap up without getting sloshed on eggnog.  Sure- it's still technically Christmas- but you just threw away an opportunity that you will never get back.

Birthday means cake.  Cake is not purchased from a grocery store.  It's just not.

And when my father in laws 50th rolled around, I knew I had to do something special.  I have been on a streak of candy bar themed caked for this side of the family for awhile, so I decided to continue the trend with an Almond Joy cake.  Layers of Almond Joy filling and chocolate cake, topped with the richest fudge frosting you'll ever taste.  Serve with a side of coconut ice cream and almond slivers, and you are good to go.

The extra-specialness of this cake comes to fruition in the topper.  I got my fondant molding skills on and make a fishy cake topper.  It's not perfect- but it was definitely fun to make and a crowd pleaser.  I used Duff's fondant to make it, which I strongly recommend.  

Here we go! 

Almond Joy Cake

Chocolate Cake
Recipe adapted from:http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/too-much-chocolate-cake/Detail.aspx

Ingredients

1 (18.25 ounce) package devil's food cake mix

1 (5.9 ounce) package instant devils food (or chocolate of any kind) pudding mix

1 (8 oz) container of sour cream (full fat, I use Daisy brand)

1 cup vegetable oil

4 eggs

1/2 cup warm water

2 tsp pure vanilla

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees 

Mix all of the ingredients together in a large bowl, or your trusty stand mixer.

Pour batter into two round cake pans.

Bake as directed on your box mix.

Coconut Filling
Recipe adapted from: http://candy.about.com/od/nutcandy/r/almond_delights.htm

Ingredients

10 ounces sweetened condensed milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 tsp salt

2 cups powdered sugar

14 ounces shredded sweetened coconut

Directions 

Combine ingredients in large bowl, set aside. 

Fudge Frosting
Recipe from: http://www.bhg.com/recipe/chocolate-cakes/chocolate-sour-cream-cake-with-fudgy-frosting/

Ingredients

1 (12 ounce) package semisweet chocolate pieces (I used Ghirardelli)

1 stick butter

1 8 ounce carton sour cream (full fat, I used Daisy)

1 lb sifted powdered sugar

Directions

Pour chocolate chips into a large glass mixing bowl (your glass stand mixer bowl if you have it.)  Cut butter into small pieces and add to the chocolate chips.  Microwave in 20 sec intervals until chocolate and butter are completely melted.  Let cool for 10 minutes.

Stir in sour cream and mix until combined.  Stir in powdered sugar and mix until combined.  Frost cake immediately.

Cake Assembly

Bake your two round cakes and let them cool.  (If you are doing this in advance, package cakes in saran wrap and foil and freeze until you are ready.  If working from frozen, defrost cakes so you can cut into them.)

Prepare your coconut filling.

Split both layers evenly.  Lay down your bottom cake layer and top with 1/3 of your coconut mixture.  you may have to use your hands to flatten out sections of the filling and piece them together to cover the cake.  Repeat this until you have three layers of coconut filling alternating between your four layers of work.

Place the cake in a cool location while you prepare your frosting.  Immediately frost and keep cake covered until ready to serve.  Serve with a scoop of coconut ice cream and top with almond pieces.

Coconut Ice Cream 

Recipe adapted from: http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Jenis-Ice-Cream-Base

Ingredients

1 cup whole milk, divided

4 tsp. cornstarch

3 tbsp. cream cheese, softened (full fat, I use Philadelphia) 

1.5 tsp coconut extract 

1 cup coconut milk

1 1/4 cups heavy cream

2/3 cup sugar

2 tbsp. light corn syrup (1.5 ounces if weighing)

1/4 tsp. kosher salt

Directions

Mix 1/4 cup of milk with 4 tsp of cornstarch into a slurry in a small bowl, set aside.

Place softened cream cheese in the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment.   Blend with coconut extract and set aside.

In a 4 quart saucepan, add the remainder of your milk, coconut milk, cream, sugar, corn syrup and salt.  Bring to a boil over medium high heat.  Reduce heat to medium and continue to boil for 4 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Mix cornstarch slurry into your saucepan and return mixture to boil (increasing heat to medium high until it boils, reducing again once it boils.)  Cook for 2 minutes while stirring.  

Pour 1/4 of your milk mixture over your cream cheese and whisk until smooth.  Add the rest of the milk mixture and blend until combined.  Pour your ice cream base into a gallon sized ziplock bag and place in an ice water bath until completely cool.  Freeze according to your ice cream makers directions.

Here's the final product- I got a little crazy with the fondant work!

More Ice Cream! (Cookie Dough, Espresso, Brownie, Raspberry, etc)

So last weekend absolutely ignited my love for making ice cream at home.  First off, it takes about a half hour to make some soft serve.  Seriously?  When you add up the time it takes me to find my keys, get in the car, wander around the grocery store buying a ridiculous amount of things I don't need, get some store bought ice cream, and drive home- that's a half hour.  And I can have homemade stuff instead!?  No brainer.

PS- I totally did that today because I needed pumpkin to make diet muffins.  I decided to bike to the grocery store, because my husband was cleaning my car because he could no longer stand the disgusting way in which I've come accustomed to living, and I didn't want to rock that boat by taking the car.  But hey!  Burned some calories and I have a clean car.  I also acquired about 13 pairs of shoes and a ton of Tupperware that apparently was hiding under my seats.  Yay productive Sundays!

Anywhoo- In conclusion, making ice cream at home doesn't take much time.  Unlike reading my rambling thoughts about it.  Second reason why I needed to make me some more ice cream?  I was going to a barbecue with my friends!  And it's flipping hot out, so I thought this would be a grande idea.  And like a good little guest, I emailed the hostess making sure they would have room in the freezer, and she kindly informed me that there was going to be about 30-40 people there.  That's a lot for my little quart sized ice cream maker to handle.

But did I drop the idea like a sane individual and bring pasta salad instead?  No!  I made ice cream every night until the party in order to have enough.  Was it worth it?  Yes!  I might have come across as the crazy lady who likes ice cream, but damn it, people left with tummies full of refreshing, delicious sinful ice cream.

And here are some of my concoctions!

Espresso

Pure Happiness.  Ice cream + caffeine.... what could be better?  And it's simple- mix in 4 tsp of instant espresso in with the milk for the vanilla ice cream, recipe follows.

Brownie Batter

Ok, we are getting a little more complicated with this one.  But not that complicated- it still starts with a boxed mix.  

Grab a brownie mix and split it half.  Grab a small pan (mine say's it's "6 cups" which is not that helpful.  Husband  measured and it seems to be 6 by 8.)  Following the instructions on the box, prepare and bake half the mix, making sure to adjust the cooking time down.  I doubled the amount of water in the recipe by accident- but the brownies were SUPER moist and kind of crumbled into the ice cream, giving it a cookies and cream type consistency.  It was amazing.  Happy accident?  

Let them cool.

Chop them up.

Try to not eat them all.

Freeze these suckers.  Mix up the basic vanilla ice cream, and after 20 minutes add in 1 cup of the remaining brownie mix.  Let that blend, and add in the frozen brownie bites.  If you do not want them to break apart, you will want to instead fold these in after the ice cream is out of the mixer.  But having them all broken up by the mixer into different sized pieces was amazing!

Cookie Dough (Nope, no eggs!)
We can't go crazy for homemade ice cream without attempting a good cookie dough!  The recipe I made for the cookie dough makes enough for four (count em' FOUR) batches of ice cream.  So you can either
A.  Cut back on the recipe...
B.  Make more ice cream to mix the cookie dough into... or
C.  Eat a lot of cookie dough.

I went for a combo of B and C.  Mostly C.  A lot of C.

 Cream together your butter and sugars.  Add the vanilla and flour.  Then (get this) add in your can of sweetened condensed milk (this takes the place of the egg and adds sweetness.  It's amazing.)

Mix in your mini chips.

Next, line a baking tray with saran wrap, and put your dough on top of it.  Place another layer of saran wrap over the dough, and press it down into the pan.  Making sure everything is covered, you can freeze this tray of cookie dough.  

Yum.

Let this set up for a few hours or overnight.  Then, pop the entire batch out of the tray, and start cutting up your cookie dough pieces.

 It's hard to tell from this picture, but the pieces are pretty small- maybe 1.5 cm cubed.  

Try to leave some to put into the ice cream.  Fold these into a batch of vanilla ice cream, and voila!











Raspberry White Chocolate Chunk
As I progress through these ice creams, they get progressively more and more complicated.  Apparently I got progressively more ambitious.  But this one certainly paid off!

First, let's make a ridiculously intense raspberry sauce to mix into the ice cream.  I've made this before for cupcakes, but I think the sauce ended up better this time, so this is what I did.

Grab two pints of raspberries.  Wash them.  Don't eat them.   Ok, eat a couple.  

Add in your sugar and your lemon juice and heat these over medium heat until broken down.

Once it's a little more broken down then this, place the raspberries in strainer with a bowl underneath to get all the seeds out.  Really try to get all the juice out.

Return the juice to the stove, add 1/8 cup of sugar and 2 tbsp light corn syrup and simmer for 20 min until very thick.  

Place this in a bowl, cover it, and refrigerate until cool (at least several hours.)

SO GOOD!

Ok, once cool you are ready to start you ice cream.  Again, I used the vanilla base recipe.  I also had 2 white chocolate bars chopped up and ready to go.  

After about 25 min, add in your raspberry sauce.  I used about 3/4 of the recipe, and retained the rest to serve as a topping.  Just add and let it blend, and taste it to see if it's to your liking.

Add in the chopped white chocolate once the raspberry sauce is combined, and you are done!

Yay! I'm done with all the ice cream!!  My favorite was the brownie- but the raspberry was a huge hit (probably didn't even need the white chocolate chunks- it was amazing on its own.)  Hubby liked the espresso the best, and the cookie dough was probably the biggest hit at the party.

So gee, I don't know.  Guess you'll have to make them all. Drat.  

Recipe time!!

Basic Vanilla Ice Cream 

Recipe adapted from: Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker Recipe Book

Ingredients
3/4 cup White Sugar
1 cup Whole Milk

2 cups Cream

2 tsp Pure Vanilla

Directions

Whisk sugar into milk until dissolved.  Pour vanilla into your cream.  Combine milk and cream.  Freeze according to your ice cream makers directions.

Espresso Ice Cream 

Recipe adapted from: Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker Recipe Book

Start with the basic vanilla recipe, but add 4 tsp of instant espresso powder to the sugar when mixing with the milk.  

Brownie Ice Cream

Recipe adapted from: Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker Recipe Book

Ingredients
1 box brownie mix

1/2 the oil, eggs and other ingredients your boxed recipe calls for

Directions

Divide brownie mix.

Taking half of the mix, prepare brownie batter as directed (adding only half of the ingredients listed, but ALL of the water.)  If the recipe only calls for one egg, crack the egg into a small bowl, whisk, and pour half of the beaten egg into the batter.

Bake the brownies until done.  Cut into chunks and freeze. 

Later, prepare the basic vanilla ice cream .  After about 20 min, pour in one cup of the unbaked brownie mix.  Let process.  Pour frozen brownie chunks into ice cream and let process.  

Cookie Dough Ice Cream

Recipe adapted from: Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker Recipe Book and http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paulas-best-dishes/cookie-dough-truffles-recipe/index.html

Ingredients (this makes enough for 4 batches of ice cream.)  

1 stick butter

3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1 tsp pure vanilla

2 cups all purpose flour

1 (14 oz) can of sweetened condensed milk

1 cup mini chocolate chips.

Directions

In a large bowl cream butter and brown sugar with an electric mixer at medium speed until creamy. Add vanilla. Gradually beat in flour and add milk. Add chocolate chips.

Press mixture into a saran wrap lined pan.  Place another layer of warp over top and press down.  Freeze pan.

Once frozen, pop the dough onto a cutting board and cut into chunks.  Freeze extra dough for future ice cream batches (or snacking!)  

Prepare a batch of the basic vanilla ice cream and fold cookie dough in at the end.

Raspberry Ice Cream

Recipe adapted from: Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker Recipe Book and http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/raspberry-sauce-recipe/index.html

Ingredients 

2 pints fresh raspberries

1/2 cup of sugar, divided

1 tbsp lemon juice

2 tbsp light corn syrup

Directions

Wash raspberries and dry completely.  Mix raspberries, half the sugar and the lemon juice in a sauce pan.  Cook over medium heat until raspberries are broken down, about 10 min.

Strain raspberries and collect juice in a bowl. Return this juice to the stove.  

Add the rest of the sugar and the corn syrup and bring to a simmer.  Cook down for about 20 min.  Allow to cool before adding to ice cream.

Prepare basic vanilla ice cream.  After 25 min, add raspberry sauce to taste.  Top with chopped white chocolate.  

Cake Batter Ice Cream (and Ice Cream Cookie Sandwiches!)

So recently I discovered that I'm lactose intolerant.  Actually, let's go with "lactose sensitive."  A. Because I haven't gone to a doctor to diagnose this and B. Because I want to eat lactose anyway, which means I'm not "intolerant" to it.  I will undoubtedly tolerate a horrendous stomach ache for food.  Hell, on Cheat Day I'll wolf down deep fried whatever covered in cheese and dipped in ranch with a side of an entire large pepperoni pizza and follow that up with bacon and cookie bars and regret.  How do you think I feel after eat all that?  I feel awful.  But I'm a trooper and eat it all anyway.

So since Cheat Day is all about eating everything I can't during the week, I somehow determined that eating dairy on Cheat Day is ok.  Plus it's really flippin hot outside.  So I figured that ice cream had to be on the agenda for the day.

Was this a wise decision?  Probably not, considering how awful I felt afterwards.  But do I plan on making ice cream again next weekend?  Yes, sir!

I'll never learn...

Cake Batter Ice Cream Sandwiches

The glorious thing about making this was that it was so incredibly easy.  I should have broken out the ice cream maker much earlier in the season!

Start by whisking 3/4 cup white sugar into 1 cup of whole milk.  Pour 2 cups of cream into a measuring cup, and add 2 tsp of pure vanilla into it.

Yes, I took a picture of a measuring cup full of cream.  Wouldn't you?  

Whisk together your cream mixture and your milk mixture.  Turn on your ice cream maker and pour it in slowly.  I suggest a funnel at this point.

5 minutes before your ice cream maker should be done (use the instructions for your machine.)  Add in 1 cup of yellow cake mix.  Let it incorporate in.  Grab spoonfuls and taste.  

When the ice cream has reached your desired consistency, pour into a freezer safe container and cover tightly.  I put a layer of saran wrap directly on the surface of mine.  You'll want to let it set in the freezer for at least an hour before you serve it up, or in my case make ice cream cookie sandwiches.  This would be a good time to go see the Harry Potter movie.  Go ahead, I'll wait...

...

...


... annnnnnd we're back.

So you can go ahead and serve it up as it, and be extremely happy, becuase it is extremely amazing. 

Two wee little bowls for hubby and I.  Just to taste!

But since Cheat Day is all about excess, I couldn't leave well enough alone.  It's cookie time, baby!  My husband's absolute favorite cookie is just basic Chocolate Chip cookies.  For an ice cream cookie, I think I'll try something else next time.  Once frozen, these aren't particularly soft and the chocolate chips are rock solid.  BUT, when you just assemble and eat- they are fantastic.  So I feel like that is just a fantastic excuse to eat all of these as you prepare them.

PS: If you make a whole recipe of the cookies, you'll have extra.  This problem is exacerbated when you down half the ice cream before you start assembling sandwiches.  Oops!

Cookie time!  Soften your butter and cream it with your sugar, brown sugar and vanilla.  

Add in two eggs, one at a time, incorporating into the batter after each.

Mix in your flour, baking soda and salt. 

Next, it's time for your mix ins.  If you do flan on freezing the cookies, I suggest mini chocolate morsels or mini M&M's.  I did full size and I think this would be much better.

Mix your add ins into your dough, and you are good to go!

Drop dough onto an ungreased cookie sheet and cook for 8 min at 375 (or until done.)

Let cool.  Sample.  Enjoy. 

These have M&M's.  Because they are delicious. 

Line em' up and get them ready to be made into sandwiches. 

Try to pair up like sized cookies for the pretties looking sandwiches. 

I used a mini ice cream scoop to pile on about 2.5 scoops onto each cookie.  Smash the top cookie on, and run your finger around the side for a clean edge.  You can also rim these in sprinkles or mini chocolate chips, but I liked them as is. 

Next?  Take lots of pictures. Eat lots of ice cream sandwiches.  Be happy.

Verdict?  Perfect little summer treat!  The ice cream was perfection- I am going to have to have many more ice cream experiments throughout the summer!  Next up?  Who knows, cookie dough?  Brownie batter?  I'll come up with something.

The cookies are great as is, but like I said before, I'm not a huge fan of  once they are frozen.  I suggest assembling and eating immediately.

Recipe time!

Cake Batter Ice Cream

Recipe adapted from: Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker Recipe Book

Ingredients
3/4 cup White Sugar
1 cup Whole Milk

2 cups Cream

2 tsp Pure Vanilla

1 cup Yellow Cake Mix (like Betty Crocker)

Directions

Whisk sugar into milk until dissolved.  Pour vanilla into your cream.  Combine milk and cream.  Freeze according to your ice cream makers directions.

Chocolate Chip Cookies
Recipe adapted from: Original Nestle Cookie Recipe 

Ingredients

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened

3/4 cup granulated sugar

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 large eggs

2 cups (12-oz. pkg.) mini chocolate chips

Directions
Preheat oven to 375

Cream 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, baking soda and salt. Stir in morsels.

Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.  Bake for 8 min or until done.