Ice Cream Cake- Happy Birthday Abuelita!

About 5 years ago, my mother bought me a Coldstone Ice Cream cake that was absolutely fabulous. I remember that it had the most amazing ganache frosting and the whole thing just melted in your mouth. De-licious. They are a bit on the expensive side (at least for my family) and therefore we have only really gotten one other Coldstone Cake since then.

This past July was my grandma's "38th" birthday (read 83...and yes, I'm posting this late) and I wanted to do something special for her since we don't get to see her as often as I would like. So instead of doing an everyday cake out of a box, I decided I wanted to kick it up a notch and create an ice cream cake with the same rich ganache frosting that I had fallen in love with before. It wasn't long until I started brainstorming different ways I could bake, freeze, assemble, etc and with a little help from my in-laws I decided to use a 10" spring form pan. This way I could easily take the cake in and out of the pan plus it would allow me to have a thinner cake thus giving me room for the layer of ice cream and not having to dirty another pan.

So how did it turn out? Everyone loved it! I normally don't like to "toot my own horn" per se but I was quite impressed that it turned out as well as it did. I had decided upon a white cake with strawberry ice cream (my abuelita's favorite)


A few notes about Ganache from The Professional Chef:
Ganache should be intensely flavored, with the chocolate flavor enriched and smoothed by the addition of cream. The texture should be completely smooth and dense. The more chocolate in the ganache, the thicker the texture will be...It should not be so thin as to run off the cake completely.

So here's what I did:

Ice Cream Cake

Ingredients

• 1 box cake mix (your choice of flavor) plus ingredients
  
• 1 qt ice cream, softened (your choice of flavor)
• 1 can frosting
  
• 1 lb high quality chocolate (for ganache icing)
  
• 8 fl oz heavy cream (for ganache icing)
  

Directions:

1. Prepare cake as directed on box in a spring form pan lined with parchment paper (if available, otherwise oil and flour generously). Bake until toothpick comes out clean in the center. Cool on a wire rack.
2. Remove cake from pan and carefully cut in half so you have two thin layers.
3. Gently place one layer of cake back in pan.
4. Spread softened ice cream over cake. Place the second layer of cake on top. Wrap the pan in plastic and place in freezer
   
5. Once ice cream is firm, prepare ganache icing.
6. While icing cools slightly, remove cake from pan, keeping the cake on the pan bottom or transfer to a cardboard round and place on wire rack. Frost cake with canned frosting to create a "crumb coat".

To Make Ganache:

1. Place chocolate in a heat proof bowl.
2. Bring the cream just to a simmer. Pour the hot cream over the chocolate, allow it to stand for 1 minute, and stir until the chocolate is thoroughly melted.
3. Allow ganache to cool so it doesn't melt the crumb coat or ice cream. Pour ganache icing over cake, quickly smoothing out any roughness before it sets. Once cake is covered, place back into freezer on plate/platter/etc until set.
4. Decorate as desired.
5. A couple minutes before serving, pull out of the freezer to allow the cake to be cut easier