Ice cream cake adventures....it was definitely an adventure!

Mr. Wonderful's birthday was this past weekend. He is the type that likes a low key birthday to-do. So every year he gets a meal of his choice and a cake of his choice. This year he decided he wanted something new....an ice cream cake. I have never made one and thought "Ah, it can't be that hard". Well it wasn't hard per se but definitely a learning experience. Now because I can laugh at my self I am going to show you how it went from great to "What is that!?!"  HAHA! Oh this is going to be good.

I started with a recipe from the Cake Doctor book. I used the butter cake recipe which was very yummy. I decided along the way I wanted a chocolate layer so I added some cocoa to half my batter and viola....chocolate cake. Things were still going great at this point.

Here are my baked cakes and the first of the trickle down affect. LOL! I put a little more batter in the vanilla cake and they didn't bake evenly. :( It wasn't bad though. They were both still very moist and tasted scrumptious. Just a little uneven. I cooled and cut to even them up.

Now for my ice cream layer. Mr. Wonderful is a very big fan of French Vanilla  ice cream. I am not a big fan of vanilla but this is a little better than the plain vanilla. So I took my cake pan and lined it with a little plastic wrap. Once I had filled the pan, it went back into the freezer. Still ok here.

Once the ice cream had set, I put all the layers together. This is where the cookie started to crumble so to speak. See this stack....in my haste to get it back in the freezer I forgot to cut the sides so they were all aligned. I also should have made a smaller ice cream layer.

See the wonkiness....it looks like a barrel.

I wrapped it pretty good and put back in the freezer to set. I had plenty of time to cut it to size. Being myself I had a hundred things going and didn't even give it a second thought. I don't know how I missed this step. I mean looking at this shape you think it would have been a no brainer. Right?!? Again I was trying to do to many things at once.

 Mr. Wonderful doesn't really care for frosting and detest fondant. I decided to give ganache a try.  I was surprised at how easy and tasty this was. The recipe I used called for 1 cup of heavy cream and 12 ounces of chocolate.

 I boiled my cream, added it to the chocolate and the most delicious ganache was born. This was so yummy. I don't know why in the world I waited so long to try this.

The ganache took a little while to cool so I did all my other cooking. Once again this big barrel of a cake slipped past me without getting a trim. I pulled out my cake and was so excited about the ganache I poured it right on top of my cake. I then sounded like Ralphy from "The Christmas Story". Thankfully I was alone in the kitchen and no one had witnessed this. LOL

I sat and starred at it for a minute and thought....you know what, it still taste good. I am no pro at baking or cake making and don't claim to be. I tried my best and now I know where to improve on next time. It did taste Amazing. I am stopping my self right now from getting a slice from the freezer. The moral of this cake craziness is....it came from love and that is all that matters. Mr Wonderful loved it and didn't even blink twice at his uneven, ganache doesn't stick to icecream, wonky, cake. Oh how I love that man. My sweetheart <3.

What I will do differently next time: take my time. Think things through. And RELAX...it's just a cake. Not use so much icecream. Try to make the layers even and trim my cake. I hope this gave you a good giggle and a few good tips!!