Was wondering if anyone had any good tips on how to make a ice cream cake..am doing a 1/4 sheet cake, with buttercream, and want everything to be great..thanks for your help

There is a How-To article on the CC home page.

I wanted to decorate cakes and do more than just the "cake in the pan" version of ice cream cake. I've been doing ice cream cakes for the last year. I do more IC cakes than I do room temp cakes. I've found the secret is to encase your entire cake in a "wall of cake". I slice the tops off the cakes and use those scraps to slice thin strips. Once I get my ice cream layer between my two cake layers, I plaster the outside walls with the scrap pieces. It's not pretty and almost reminds me of a quiltwork, but once the entire cake freezes, you can leave it out of the freezer for quite a long time to ice and decorate. The "wall of cake" keeps it frozen solid, which also makes transport possible. Sometimes my cakes are transported twice...once from my place to client's house...then on to event. I'm working on an ice cream tutorial this weekend with pictures, since others have asked about it. Should be ready by Monday. I'll PM you when I have finished it. Rule of thumb for me....don't have exposed ice cream...otherwise your icing will slide right off and your ice cream will run all over the place.
Most of my photos are ice cream cakes to give you an idea of what I've accomplished with decorating (so far).

Be in touch with you soon on that tutorial.
Pam

when you say I cream cake do you mean like Baskin Robbins??
M

I will definitely be interested in the how-to tutuorial that you are doing.
Sounds great.
Karen

I would really love to know how to do that too..........can you include me with the "how to"?
Thanks
How do you charge? I'm sure you charge extra for the ice cream

The reason I ask about the ice cream cake is like baskin robbins is because making an ice cream cake with scraps and such sounds so time consuming.
To Make a BR ice cream cake all you do is line a cake pan add soft ice cream re freeze.have a cake baked and frreze.
when both the cake and ice cream are frozen then you frost with soft vanilla ice cream~ colored if you want. You will have to refreeze again.Then you decorate with your borders, flowers and what ever you want.
I got this recipe from Topsecretrecipes.com so it's not my own.
but in my opinion it is much easier than the other way than using scraps and you can make ahead. and I never have scraps.

Yah, it's a little extra work. I just use the cake top, and it seems to be enough. It's worth the extra effort, I think. I find with the "exposed ice cream" and/or soft serve on top, it melts so quickly. It's fine for my family, if we just pull it out at home, but transporting for clients became in issue. Of course, they always want to come get it on Friday night. Traffic is San Diego is at it's finest at that time of the week. One woman was caught in traffic and had her cake out for 45minutes. It held up just fine, but I really think it was due to the encasing of the cake wall.

How do you keep iyour ice cream frosting from melting so quickly?
Thanks
Pam

I first started decorating cakes when I worked at Baskin Robbins as a teenager. I was the main cake maker/decorator for our store. If this is the kind of cake you want to make, it's pretty simple, as long as you have the freezer space!

1. Make and freeze a cake.

2. Make ice cream scoops (with a real ice cream scoop so you have balls) on top of the frozen cake. Let the ice cream soften a bit and run your knife across the top of the scoops to flatten and shape.)

3. Put back in the freezer when finished to harden. You might have to put it back in the freezer as you're working with the scoops, but that's fine.

4. Let some ice cream that you want to use for the "frosting" soften. When the cake/ice cream in the freezer is hard again, use the softened ice cream as an icing. Put back in the freezer to harden.

5. Decorate after it's really hard. Again, you might have to put the cake in the freezer periodically as you're decorating.

6. The decorating icing that we used at Baskin Robbins was probably an all crisco recipe because it seemed really waxy, but it held onto the cake well.

Hope this helps -- I loved making them -- really easy! Just need that darn freezer space to make it work smoothly.

Good luck!

I've created my own web page to show my ice cream cake technique and tips. Most of the cakes I make are ice cream cakes. I've been doing them for a year now and I'd love to share my experiences. Feel free to share the link.
Thanks
Pam
http://groups.msn.com/IceCreamCake/tutorial.msnw