A Birthday!

Always a wonderful reason to eat cake.

 

My son turned 15-years-old and decided on a peanut butter-ice cream cake.  

Other than that he left the details up to me and this is what I came up with.

I started out with a layer of cake.  I used a yellow cake mix and swirled in 1/2 cup peanut butter.  It was good but I think chocolate cake with peanut butter chips would have been really good too.  I baked the cake in a spring-form pan, and there was enough batter to make some cupcakes as well.  You could simply bake it in a round pan, but a spring-form is especially convenient for ice cream cakes.  Since I had one, I used it. 

After baking and cooling I took the sides off and sliced off the top of the cake because I didn't want too thick of a layer and I also wanted it flat. Then I put the sides back on to assemble the rest of the cake.  

I made up a batch of fudge sauce (see recipe below)  and spread some over the top of the cake.  I put it in the freezer to harden it up a bit and then spread softened ice cream over the top of the fudge layer.  I used an entire container ( I think that is 1.5 quarts) of peanut butter cup ice cream.  Then another layer of fudge sauce.  After that I left it in the freezer to harden up.  

Now for decorating the cake.  First, for the sides I used cool whip.  

Then for the best part, I made a peanut butter frosting to decorate and write "happy birthday".  (recipe below).  This frosting was seriously so good, I could eat it plain!  I should have used a lot more of it, it made the cake.  You can tell I am a peanut butter lover.  I also used some reece's peanut butter cups for decorations.  Then I wrote happy birthday.  It was difficult since my peanut butter frosting was getting a little thick by then.  

Mmmmmmm!  With only 5 of us at home nowadays we didn't finish the entire cake off  at once.  That still amazes me that a cake can last more than a day.  It made great after school snacks the next afternoon.  

 Delicious!

Fudge Sauce

1/2 cup butter

1 cup chocolate chips

1 12 ounce can evaporated milk

2 1/2 cups powdered sugar

Melt  butter and chocolate chips.  Add other ingredients

 and boil over medium heat for 6 minutes.  Makes 3 cups.

 

Peanut Butter Frosting

Use equal amounts of peanut butter and butter.  I used 1/4 cup of each, but next time I will make more.  
Soften the butter and the peanut butter ( separately so you can get them the right amount of softened - not liquid just easy to stir.)  Mix together and then add powdered sugar  gradually until you have it the thickness that you prefer working with.  You could drizzle it but mine was thicker and I piped it through a decorating bag.   

Very simple, that's all there is to it!