Ice Cream Cake

I remember the day I tasted this delectable cake -- my good friend, Sue, made this for my thirtieth-something birthday which, by the way, was like a century ago, but you do the math!!!  We lived across the street from her, as you both should remember well.  Mom was feeling sorry for herself because it was about 7 pm on the evening of July 14th, probably in the year of 1992 or '93.  Dad was either away on a business trip or at a boy scout meeting with you, James.  And you, Brit, were off somewhere in the neighborhood playing -- such a social bug!  It was a beautiful summer evening and I was sitting in the garage with a long face thinking of how I should just start another project and get over myself!  So what it's my birthday?  Who cares?  Suddenly Sue appeared in our driveway with a beautiful gift bag and a huge plastic container hiding what was to be one of Dad's and my favorite cake recipes.  What a great birthday after all and, too, I ended up having a lot of fun anyway that evening when everyone came home.  It was fun sharing the cake and taking great pleasure watching each of you "squirm" because Sue remembered and you didn't!  Lol


Ingredients:
2 boxes of devil's food cake mix (I use chocolate, but any mix of your choice is fine)
2 large containers of cookies and cream ice cream or your choice (do not buy low fat, fat free, or sugar free -- use only regular ice cream  (see note below)
1 large and 1 small container of cool whip  (located in freezer section of grocery store near frozen dessert)

Directions:
Line two (2) 9-inch round cake pans with good quality plastic wrap overlapping the edges.  Soften ice cream so that you can easily remove from container.  Just remove the ice cream from freezer and allow to stand on counter until it softens  Spread evenly into two 9-inch round cake pans.  Return to freezer and the ice cream will freeze to a hard round form.  When you think it's frozen well, grab the plastic wrap and remove the ice cream from the pans.  The pans are now available to use for baking. Return the ice cream rounds back into the freezer until you have finished baking the three cake layers and they have cooled. 

*Follow instructions on the box cake mix (see note below) --pour batter into three well-greased and floured round cake pans -- filling each pan a little over half full.  Bake according to directions on box.  Cool in pans and remove approximately 10 minutes after baking onto cooling racks.  You will probably have a little cake batter left over -- do the simple thing and eat it (lol) like Mom does or make a few cupcakes.

Assemble Cake:
On a round cake platter, start with the first layer cake, next remove the ice cream from freezer, pulling the plastic wrap away, and stack on top of first cake layer.  Continue with another cake layer, then the last ice cream layer, topped off with the last cake layer.  Ice the entire cake with cool whip and return to the freezer immediately.  Try to store the cake in a plastic cake container.  If your cake platter will not fit into the plastic container, assemble the cake directly on the base of the plastic storage container.  Cover tightly.

* Try to buy regular ice cream -- not the sugar free, fat free stuff!   I had to buy fat free one time as they were out of the regular and the fat free does not freeze as solid.  Therefore, it was a mess trying to keep it in the "round" shape and even a bigger mess trying to assemble the broken pieces.  So try to stick to the good stuff!

*I make the first boxed cake, then I make the second box -- I don't like mixing the two at the same time -- I think it's better to mix individually. 

This cake is a slice of Heaven!  Yum!