Ice Cream Sundae Cake {a recipe. or perhaps, a general guideline}

You know how some families have birthday season?  Where all the birthdays are clustered into a month or two?  Well, if our family has a birthday season, this is it, with AKD's birthday near the end of July and Hubby's birthday less than two weeks later in early August.  I know.  Not much of a season, is it?  But, it's all we've got--the rest of us are pretty well spread out.

Anyway, Hubby was planning to be away from home, on a canoe camping trip, on his birthday this year, and we had a gift for Hubby that we knew he would want to use on the trip, so we decided to surprise him with an early birthday celebration.



The birthday boy enjoying his present

We tried to trick him into telling us what kind of birthday treat he wanted by doing something we sometimes do at suppertime.  Someone will ask a question, and then everyone takes turns answering it.  Discussion ensues.  This time, the question was, "what's your favorite dessert?"  And Hubby said, "ice cream."

Huh.  Not a very special treat for a birthday.

So I had to specialisize it.  (Yes, I know specialisize is not a real word)

Introducing the yummy, the delicious, the delectable...

Ice Cream Sundae Cake!

It's a cake!  It's ice cream!  It's a sundae!  It is so good.

Here's what I did:

• First I added some melted butter (or margarine) to oreo cookie crumbs, and pressed them into the bottom of my 9" springform pan.
• Next, I sliced a couple of bananas and layered them in the pan, drizzling liberally with caramel sauce.  I covered that with a layer of chocolate ice cream, then stuck it in the freezer for a bit to solidify.
• The next step was to layer fresh sliced strawberries over the chocolate ice cream--you could use strawberry jam instead if you prefer.
• Over the strawberries, I drizzled hot fudge sauce that I had heated just a little bit to make it pourable, and sprinkled on some chopped dry roasted peanuts.
• On top of all that yummy goodness, I spread some vanilla ice cream, and stuck the whole thing in the freezer for about 4 hours to get good and solid.
• Just before serving, I decorated the top with rediwhip and maraschino cherries.  Oh, and candles.

Yum-o!

That's just what I did, of course!  Feel free to accessorize your ice cream sundae cake however you want.  Add more or different flavors of ice cream, like strawberry or cookies & cream.  Add more or different topping choices, like creme de menthe, toffee, or pineapple topping.  Sprinkle those oreo crumbs on the top.  You can even (gasp!) leave the candles off.

Enjoy!