Liberty and Ice Cream for All

EB of Spice Dish sent this along. Love it! Thanks EB!

Happy National Ice Cream Sandwich Day!

Happy National Ice Cream Sandwich Day!

I looooove ice cream sandwiches. Actually I just brought home some Klondike 100 Calorie Ice Cream Sandwiches tonight. Okay so I am feeling guilty after a weekend of binging on vacation so I had to do the lo cal option but I must admit they are quite good. When I am craving chocolate but want ice cream too I think a sandwich is the perfect solution. I know everyone loves the Skinny Cow sandwiches but if I had to choose I'd go with Klondike's Slim-a-Bear sandwiches all the way. I think the ice cream is smoother and creamier but believe me I'd never turn down either. Regardless....its a good excuse today to grab a sandwich...an ice cream one that is.....and celebrate!

Oh...and if you didn't see the fab article in last month's Woman's World...we at Scoopalicious scooped about ice cream sandwiches and a fun option we truly think is unique and yummmmmy! 

Enjoy the Last Day of National Ice Cream Month

Today is the last day of National Ice Cream Month -- we've enjoyed it thoroughly but we are ready to take a break from daily posts for a bit -- though we'll still post often. This month always reminds us of how many awesome ice cream related things there are to post about. So we'll keep 'em coming and please feel free to send us anything you think is blog-worthy as well!

It was a big month, full of contests, recipes, events, and even our 300th post! (We got some great feedback which I'll share soon, as well as picked the winners from our drawing, but I just realized I can't post the winners names because I only have their email addresses -- but congrats to our winners!)

I am keeping this short because today is a special day for me...my golden birthday...thirty-one on the thirty-first. While my friend Karla (who first told me about "golden birthdays") wanted to celebrate her golden birthday by being on Deal or No Deal, I am off to celebrate in a simpler way -- with cake and ice cream -- perfection!

Thanks to Anisha Palmer for the yummy photo above.

[Scoopalicious is celebrating National Ice Cream month with a Post-A-Day throughout the month of July!]

Instructables Homemade Magic Shell

Marsha recently sent over a recipe from Instuctables on how to make a homemade "Magic Shell" for ice cream by scoochmaroo (who also has some more pretty cool Instructables, so check them out!) Since I am a huge fan of Dairy Queen's cherry dip cone, I am going to have to figure out how to make this in cherry! For now though, I'll settle for the chocolate!

As a bonus, today only, Deals.Woot has a Cuisinart soft serve machine on sale for $39.99 + $5.00 shipping. (Thanks to Marsha yet again for this tip!). If you miss the deal no worries, you can get the soft serve machine here. With the machine, a box of wafer cones, and the Instructable, you can have a Dairy Queen chocolate dip right in your kitchen!

Ooooh, this might also be an interesting variation instead if the whipped cream frosting on yesterday's cake!

[Scoopalicious is celebrating National Ice Cream month with a Post-A-Day throughout the month of July!]

Peanut Butter Ice Cream Cake

I made an ice cream cake this week. It was only the second one I have ever made, so I was pretty excited with how it came out.

Basically, I layered the all the ingredients (except for the whipped frosting, sprinkles, and peanut butter cups) in a spring form pan, froze it, then when completely frozen, released it, and frosted and decorated it.

1.  I crumbled a box of Nabisco Famous Chocolate Wafer Cookies in the food processor and added a half a stick of butter to help them stick. I used half of this crumble (or maybe a little more) as the bottom layer. In retrospect, next time I probably would use Oreos in place of the Wafer Cookies , because the cream would help it stick better. 
2. Next, I piled on a layer of ice cream. I used Jacques Torres Vanilla Ice Cream Recipe (it's a little hidden in the entire recipe listed, but well worth it.) While not usually a honey fan, I love the flavor that the touch of honey adds to it. Instead of vanilla bean, I used 2 tablespoons of vanilla bean paste. Unfortunately, I used to be able to get this at Trader Joe's for $4.99 a bottle, but as with everything I love from Trader Joes, they stopped carrying it. It's best to use the ice cream right out of the ice cream maker, so have the crust ready to go.
3. Next, the remainder of the cookie crumble.
4. I then added peanut butter sauce. My friend and I have been trying to reproduce Friendly's sauce. I found a recipe online here, but as I was making it, I thought it wasn't peanut buttery enough, and I added more. I shouldn't have. I think if I had left it as is, it would have been perfect. Thanks Rachelle at the Saucy Little Dish! Spreading was impossible, so I more dropped it on as dollops. I froze this layer while I made the next layer. 
5. I then added a layer of peanut butter ice cream straight out of the ice cream maker. This recipe was from The Ultimate Peanut Butter Book: Savory and Sweet, Breakfast to Dessert, Hundereds of Ways to Use America's Favorite Spread by Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough. I love these guys. You can also use the recipe from their The Ultimate Ice Cream Book: Over 500 Ice Creams, Sorbets, Granitas, Drinks, And More (my bible in ice cream making) but the one in The Ultimate Peanut Butter Book is more peanut butter, which is what the cake recipients liked! Freeze the cake after this step until frozen solid.
6. I then released the cake from the spring form, and frosted it. Frosting was made up of two cups of whipping cream whipped with 1/4 cup cocoa powder and a 1/4 cup granulated sugar until stiff peaks formed.
7. I decorated the cake with six Reeses Peanut Butter Cups and chocolate sprinkles, but really, you could do as you please!

Freeze again until the whipped topping is frozen and enjoy!

My apologies for the coloring on both photos. My phone makes them a little too yellow and the quality isn't great, we were impatient to try the cake (which, I forgot to add, was AMAZING, if I do say so myself -- but the guests enjoyed it too), and I am not great at color adjustment!

[Scoopalicious is celebrating National Ice Cream month with a Post-A-Day throughout the month of July!]