Just popping in real quick to tell you about this little dessert I recently discovered…
You will want to make it ASAP. Perfect for last minute gatherings or for your kids’ birthday parties as an alternative to the usual birthday cake!
Inspired by this post. Here is another variation, too!
Ice Cream Sandwich Cake
12-15 ice cream sandwiches
{variety of your choice ~ I used mini ice cream sammies found at Ralphs, their brand, 16 in a box}
Chocolate syrup, caramel sauce, or even Magic Shell would be fun!
Tub of Cool-whip
M&M’s or candy bar of choice {chopped up}
Use a tray or large dish to assemble this dessert. Lay a row of ice cream sandwiches onto your plate, tray or dish side by side. Spread on a layer of cool-whip, drizzle with chocolate syrup or caramel sauce and then sprinkle your candy of choice on top. Repeat with the same number of ice cream sandwiches followed by another layer of cool-whip, syrup and candy. Repeat one last time and you’re done! Place in freezer for a couple hours before serving and cut with a serrated knife.
Easy, right?
This would be fun at Christmas with the mint ice cream sandwiches and the red and green M&M’s or chopped peppermint bark.
Or what about neapolitan ice cream sammies with slices of banana in-between and topped with sliced almonds and cherries for a Banana Split Ice Cream Cake?
And I do know that they have cookie and cream ice cream sandwiches, too!
Have fun with it!!!
You must make one before summer officially ends.
Um, that’s what’s dangerous about living in So Cal…….
Fifty cake balls for a friend and then a dozen asian turkey meatballs for dinner!
I’m getting better at cake balls…I have learned that, if you’re using white chocolate to coat, the best is Nestle Toll House Premier White. They seem to melt down the best and provide smoother coverage. I’ve heard that you can add a bit of Crisco to chocolate to help thin it out, too.
For these, I used Duncan Hines Spice cake mix and DH whipped cream cheese frosting and then the white chocolate and chocolate jimmies. They had a very mild gingerbread flavor ~ perfect for Thanksgiving or Christmas dessert tables.
1 box of cake mix {prepared as directed and baked in a 9X13 pan}, 3/4 {12 ounces} of one 16 ounce container prepared frosting and one whole bag of melted chocolate {or white} chips yields approximately two dozen cake balls. In my short cake ball career, I have learned that you will have a little bit of the mix leftover, but will have run out of chocolate to cover them. So yesterday I doubled the recipe and baked two cakes, used double the frosting and two bags of white chips for 50 cake balls.
Here is a cute cake pop tutorial…just skip the stick process if you’re making cake balls.
*****
And if rolling 50 cake balls wasn’t enough, I chose to make Asian Turkey Meatballs for last night’s din din ~ flavorful and healthy at the same time. The dipping sauce put them over the top! I served them with a little brown rice and some steamed broccoli.
{the recipe makes 12 meatballs}
*****
Alrighty, I’m gonna roll out and get some chores done.
Happy Monday!
P.S. My {webmaster} is conducting some upgrades/changes to Flip Flop Follies and may have made a little mistake while coding…the buttons on the sidebar aren’t linking up right now {and may not even be visible at this time}. Please bear with us until we can pinpoint the problem. Muchas gracias! XO
Edited to add: I am linking up with Jess’ PinterTest Kitchen over at Keeping Up With The Johnsons today {10.6.11} to share the Cake Batter Blondies. I am cheating a bit and have already posted this and do not have a play by play with fun commentary {next time!} but I wanted to share these because they were such a big hit. And how cute would they be with some Halloween jimmies {or Halloween Funfetti}, orange tinted frosting and some orange and black sprinkles sittin’ on top? And for Christmas….red and green jimmies in the batter with mint green frosting and some fun festive sprinkles atop? Adorbs, right? They are rich so I suggest picking up some cute mini muffin/cupcake liners and cutting them small and nestling them in the papers. The possibilities are endless with these things….Valentine’s Day? Cute. Cute.
Head on over and see what else is {makin’ it} or {fakin’ it} on Pinterest!
I don’t think I’ve ever eaten a blondie in my life, but once I laid eyes on these, I knew that had to change.
Aren’t they fun? Don’t they just scream, “BIRTHDAY”?
I decided to whip up a batch to serve at this weekend’s birthday brunch.
I cut mine into bite-sized pieces and tucked them into mini muffin/cupcake papers. I used a little blue & green food coloring in the glaze to stick with the {theme}.
The recipe made double what you see. I’m going to pop them in the freezer and pull them out the night before the party. I figure I’d get as much prep work done beforehand to cut down on stress the morning of…
I may or may not have sampled a few as I was cutting them. I mean I wouldn’t want to serve something without sampling it first, right?
Now if I could please excuse myself…Jillian is {screaming} my name ~ off to shred I go.
I’ve been aware of cake balls/cake pops for awhile now. My friend, Alisah, in Texas told me about cake balls a couple years ago…I had to literally talk myself out of making them. I would say I did pretty well…
However, making cake pops {just cake balls on a stick} was on our Summer 2011 To-do List and so that is what we did over the weekend!
I had my first cake pop a couple months ago and was underwhelmed. The inside was WAY to gooey for how I imagined cake pops to be. I wanted to make sure and strike the perfect balance between cake and frosting without them being too gooey or, for that matter, too dry and crumbly. I’d seen several recipes, but Wendy’s tutorial was the best! Humor is a must when you’re making these things….
I decided to make LemonLime CakePops
{the perfect combination of sweet & tart!}
I started with this:
{just prepare and bake cake as directed on box. the only changes I made were adding the zest of one lime to the mix and using the juice of one lime as part of the water measurement. I baked in a 9X13 pan, let cool and then crumbled into a large bowl}
Then I added some of this:
{Duncan Hines has a lemon frosting but I thought that may be a little too much so I decided on classic white. I also added a little more fresh lime zest to the crumbled up cake before mixing in the frosting. I used about 3/4 of container [this was the smaller size, NOT the taller one]. Just stir with a spoon and the mixture will come together and you will see that it becomes “rollable”}
Stick it into the fridge for about 30 minutes before rolling into balls.
I used this to help with the sizing:
{Once I scooped out the cake mixture and dropped it on some parchment paper, I hand rolled into smooth balls and placed them back onto the parchment paper and back into the fridge for about 30 more minutes while I got the coating ready}
Take a bag of these:
{You have to be REALLY careful when heating these in the micro…I screwed up the first bag! 30 seconds on half power, stir, 15 seconds on 50% power, stir, and repeat in 15 second [50% power] intervals until smooth. Dip your lollipop stick into just a bit of white chocolate and insert into cake ball. The chocolate acts as a glue. You now have a naked cake pop! Once you have all the sticks inserted, use a spoon to coat the pops with the chocolate. This is the time consuming part. For some reason these Hershey chips were not as runny as I would have liked them to be…I thought I was going to be able to dip the pops into the chocolate and get a nice smooth coating…not so, but still didn’t look too bad. Next time I’ll use Wilton candy melts…I think they melt down a little smoother. Place your newly dressed pops onto parchment paper and douse with sanding sugar, jimmies, or sprinkles. You’re done!}
There was one point in this process when I swore I would never make these again, but once I popped one in my mouth, that all changed. I will definitely be passing plates of these out whenever I do make them because they are way too dangerous to have in the house.
Looking forward to creating different combinations for Halloween, Fall, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Easter, etc.
How about a spice cake mix, cream cheese frosting and butterscotch chip coating? Wonder if those would melt down nicely.
Or chocolate cake mix, chocolate frosting and Reese’s peanut butter chips?
Strawberry cake, cream cheese frosting and white chocolate coating for a girly baby shower or Valentine’s Day?
Cake batter cake pops with yellow cake, rainbow sprinkles mixed in with the frosting then coated in yellow candy melts and showered with more rainbow sprinkles?
The developer of Valencia, Newhall Land, has deemed it {Awesometown}. I think it’s pretty catchy marketing.
“Just another day in…AWESOMETOWN”!
Love it.
Anywhoo, I wanted to share 10 things that made my/our weekend awesome…
1. I found these Miss Trish flops for $6.24 at Target:
Love the pineapple bling…I may have a girl crush on Trish Carroll ~ hoping she teams up with Target again next summer! Here is a fun article featuring the woman behind the fabulous bejeweled sandals.
It’s amazing to me that both The Getty Center and The Getty Villa are FREE to the public {nominal parking fees apply}. It’s difficult to get the full effect of these two places when bringing the kids but we still love to go and stroll around the gardens and pack a picnic. The Getty Villa had crafts which the kids loved…I even made a cithara:
You can see the Pacific Ocean through the Roman-inspired gardens…
{on elliott ~ my vintage baby dress and miss trish sandals from target}
Last time we were in San Diego we went to a cupcake shop called Batter Up. It’s the cutest concept and the cupcakes were delish, but the store decor needed a grand slam.
It was pretty blah.
By the time we walked out, I had already redesigned the place and had a blueprint in my head.
Real live stadium seats bolted to the floor.
Old lockers filled with fun cupcake liners, cookbooks and all things cupcake related for sale.
Astroturf on the floor.
Pennant buntings hanging from the ceiling.
Apothecary jars filled with peanuts and cracker jacks.
Large glass vases holding baseballs.
The cupcakes needed some fun, festive baseballin’ names, ya know?
But I digress…
Now…back to Cake Batter Ice Cream.
This recipe is SO easy and SO out of this world…er…ballpark?!?
I ended up using whole milk for one of the 2 cups of whipping cream…made it a little lighter. Ha!
I tapped the cake mix through a mesh strainer to make sure there were no clumps.
Next time I will add rainbow sprinkles into the ice cream the last few minutes while the machine is running.
I only wish that I had red, white and blue sprinkles instead…
But, this ice cream was more than I imagined it would be. If you’re an ice cream lover and you don’t have one of these, you need to treat yourself to one!
Next up….some refreshing summer sorbet in our new sorbet cups!
Rainbow layered cakes are all the rage these days.
Yes, they’re a little more time consuming {especially when you only have one pan and need to bake 4 separate cakes!}
But it’s all worth it when you cut into it and reveal this…
Your guests will “ooooh and ahhhhh”.
How can you not?
*****
For this cake, I used two boxes of white cake mix. I prepared the first box and then took 2 cups of batter and put it into another bowl. I used food coloring {gels} rather than regular food coloring as they are more vibrant. First, I put about 15 drops of pink and yellow, mixed well and baked those off. Then I repeated the process with the second box of mix and used the same amount of food coloring for the green and blue cakes and baked them off. Let cool and then layer them together with just a bit of frosting. Frost the whole cake, decorate, sing and then serve up a smile.
Happy 6th Birthday, Elliott!
Thank you for all the {smiles} you bring to our family!
When my little cake grows up, it wants to be just like this!
*****
{I found the Wilton gel food colors at Target {pink, yellow, green & blue}. You can also find them at Michael’s or Wal-mart in many different colors. These cakes are fun for holidays, graduations or sporting events. It’s fun to grab the school or team colors and bake up some spirited cupcakes or layered cake}
So, we’ve decided on a theme, delivered our invitations and thought about how we’re going to decorate…now we need to think about what we’re going to eat and drink!
Part 4 ~ Food & Drink
I love to cook & bake and put menus together so this MAY be my favorite part of party planning. I have learned to keep the food simple, but delicious. It’s better to serve less, great tasting food than to have oodles of store bought or less quality food in my opinion.
You can tailor the type of foods and how much you want to serve to the time of day your party will take place. I have been to a couple mid-morning parties where brunch-type food was served and it was fabulous. Quiche, fruit, bagels & cream cheese…this can also be a little more cost effective. Have a pajama party and serve pancakes or waffles. There is nothing wrong with having an early morning party and serving muffins, donuts, milk & coffee! Make the cake out of donuts like this one made out of Krispy Kremes:
Our parties are usually right around lunch time. In the past I have done lots of {make-your-own bars} at my kids’ parties…homemade sloppy joe’s, tacos and chili. I make a big pot of meat, set out the mini buns, tortillas and toppings and the guests help themselves. I always have at least one other side dish that can be made ahead of time. I served potato salad and baked beans with the sloppy joe’s, chips & guac with the tacos and cornbread muffins with the chili.
Have your party mid-afternoon and you just have to serve cake & ice cream. Or host a {Milk & Cookies} party around 2-3pm and just serve an assortment of homemade cookies and chocolate milk as an afternoon snack! {be sure and mention on the invite breifly what food will be served so the guests can plan accordingly}
Again, once I have a theme I go all out. I like to print up a menu and frame it so that the guests know what I’m serving up. Come up with clever names for your dishes, type them up, print out and place in a frame!
I like to have some kid-friendly options, too, obviously. I have found time after time that piggies in a blanket are a HIT! Partygoers of all ages LOVE these and they are so easy and cheap! Just take a package of hot dogs, cut them in half, roll them in crescent rolls and bake as directed on package. Serve with ketchup & mustard for dipping and you’re good to go! I never make enough of these….
Kids love picnic lunches. If you’re doing something at a park or the beach {or even at home}, pick up some of the frozen Smucker’s peanut butter & jelly sandwiches, some individual bags of chips, applesauces and a juice box to put together little picnic lunches in paper bags or take out containers that can be found at places like Smart & Final. Tie with a fun ribbon and serve.
You can doctor up a cheese and cracker platter by finding some small cookie cutters and cutting out pre-sliced cheese in shapes. Make some tea sandwiches, cut off the crusts and then cut into small triangles. They can be as simple as cream cheese and cucumber or tuna salad. Finger foods are great for parties since people prefer to graze while they mingle. I like to keep lots of small cocktail plates handy.
I’ve also just served heavy appetizers like dips and pasta salads. Artichoke dip is always a crowd pleaser ~ your guests will hit you up for the recipe on the way out! Everyone loves a 7-layer dip with refried beans, taco meat, tomatoes, green onions, sour cream, guacamole and cilantro {you can also add corn and/or olives}. Serve with tortilla chips of Fritos Scoops. Order some hot wings or make some potato skins for some fun pub-style eats.
And believe me, there is nothing wrong with having good ‘ol Costco pizzas and cesar salad in you mom’s garage and letting the kids run amok outside…we did that for Holden’s 2nd birthday!
Other options: fondue, spaghetti & garlic bread, catered Panda Express {did this for Elliott’s 1st!}, crock pot bbq pork for sliders on Hawaiian sweet rolls! All these are great for a crowd and perfect for leftovers…if there are any!
*****
You need something to wash down all this good food…
I always keep it simple for the kids with Capri Suns or juice boxes. Have a Sharpie handy to write names on the drinks.
Fill a glass pitcher with water, ice and lemon or lime slices for those who want to get their 8 glasses of H2O a day. 😉
Since the parents always stay for our parties at this point, I always have a signature cocktail. Make a batch of sangria or big pitcher of a pre-mixed drink like a martini or margarita and add ice when ready to serve {pre-mix martinis, but add to a martini shaker with ice just before serving}. Again, put on your creative hat and come up with a fun name for your {adult beverage}.
My mom bought us a glass beverage dispenser and it’s been the best gift ever. It gets pulled out every time we have a party or a crowd. Great for iced tea, lemonade, or punch. From TJ Maxx for under $20.
We always have the usual soda suspects of Diet Pepsi and it’s cousins, but it’s also fun to pick up some Izze sodas or some old-fashioned root beer. While you’re at it, pick up some hand crafted beers, too. Grab a couple big tubs from the dollar store, pack with ice and cradle your beverages to keep them cold.
*****
Now let’s talk about cake!
I have ordered expensive cakes, cheap cakes, cupcakes, cupcake cakes, ice cream cakes, done homemade cakes, you name it! I’ve made a cake AND had cupcakes, too! Make it easy…pick one and be happy with that. Make cupcakes and let the kids decorate them…did that, too! Cupcakes-in-a-jar are all the rage and something that I have not yet tried, but how fun are these?
If you want to make a theme cake, let Google do the work for you! There are tons of ideas and tutorials out there to help build the perfect cake. Be creative, but don’t get overwhelmed…if your cake doesn’t look so hot, it will still taste great. I learned this firsthand recently with Holden’s {caketastrophe}!
Have a milk & cookies party and you can totally forgo the cake and serve cuties like these:
For Elliott’s 4th birthday she had an Ice Cream Social. I just picked up those giant Costco cupcakes and cut them in quarters and the kids had fun making a mess…I mean making their own ice cream masterpieces!
{I picked up the soda fountain hats at Smart and Final and the kiddos decorated them}
*****
I think that’s it for food & drink! The key is to make the food SIMPLE, but DELICIOUS! Bottom line…try not to stress out…plan ahead, shop ahead and see what you can do a day or two beforehand. Believe me, I still need to work on this. The less scrambling around you do the day of the party, the more fun you’ll have!
Last, but not least…coming up tomorrow: Part 5: Activites & Favors
