Jul 27

Chocolate Mint Ice Cream Cake

Having an August birthday might not have been my first choice of months, but as a child, it grew on me. My birthday parties were always outside, always hot, but never without ice cream. Often the ice cream was homemade peach or peppermint, and sometimes, if I begged and pleaded with my mother, she would make an ice cream cake.

Flash forward many years and my friend Beth is hosting her daughter’s 16^th birthday and what does she serve? A chocolate and mint ice cream cake. Talk about nostalgic and talk about delicious! So I begged for the recipe, and Beth gave it to me saying it was from her cousin Laurie in Kentucky. I shared that recipe in my cookbook, What Can I Bring?.

Now, I have made Beth’s recipe a wee bit simpler for all of us, beginning with a cake mix. For this you need a sturdy chocolate cake that holds up well to freezing, your favorite ice cream, and sweetened whipped cream to frost the cake. You also need a plastic cake saver with lid in which to stash the cake in the freezer.

Bake this ahead of birthdays, and you will enjoy the festivities without stress. Bake it most any time of the year, but somehow the dog days of August are the most suitable, when the cool cake and ice cream combination refresh your palate and make a scorcher of a day a real celebration.

Here is the recipe.