Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream Cake. A layer of crushed cookies, chocolate fudge sauce & peanut butter in between two layers of chocolate PB ice cream. Yup, take all that in for a minute. It’s a rich, delicious frozen cake that’s impressive yet surprisingly simple to make.   

Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream Cake

Most people love ice cream cakes or could totally do without. I suppose I’m impartial – I’m not the biggest ice cream fan, but I’ll have a scoop (or a slice of cake) a few times a year.

What I can say is that Ice Cream Cakes are not cheap. A 10″ round starts at $35. Price is often a determining factor for my purchases & I knew I could make an ice cream cake cheaper.

This Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream Cake was a total hit with all the ice cream lovers in my life.

(I truly intended to take a perfect picture of my pretty cake creation before cutting – but – one thing led to another and we had to annihilate that cake. Lol. Amateur move, I know.)

For all those that love frozen desserts but not the dairy – check out my Chocolate Cherry Banana Ice Cream recipe.

Ingredients & Instructions

Ice cream cakes really are simple to make. The only factor is time. Make life easy, keep the cake making stress free and allow yourself at least 24 hours to get the cake done.

The basics. All you’re really doing here is layering and freezing ingredients.

Anytime I need a large amount of chocolate cookie crumbs I skip the whole cookies. Scraping the cream out is fine for a bit of crumbs, but fussing with it for 2 cups of crumbs is just silly. Find a local grocer that has a bulk section and more than likely you’ll find chocolate cookie crumbs alongside graham cracker crumbs. Total time & effort saver.

Every good ice cream cake needs a good frosting. I’ve tried numerous frostings and have been disappointed by every one.  

A lot of people recommend a frosting made with heavy whipping cream – but I wasn’t impressed with how it freezes. Ice crystals, yuck. Up to this point, the best frosting I’ve found for an ice cream cake is store bought tub of “Extra Creamy Whipped Topping”. I used a generic store brand, but you can look for “Coolwhip Extra Creamy”. It’s creamy, stays creamy and has just a hint of sweetness.

I decorated the cake in a matter of minutes. I spread on an even layer of the whipped topping, sprinkled on some Reese’s Pieces candies, sprinkles and threw on a few Mini Peanut Butter Cups. Voila!

Hope you love this Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream Cake as much as we did!  Thanks so much for stopping by!

Amanda ♥

The first ice cream cake I ever made was inspired by this recipe at Instructables, Big thanks to the author for the know-how & inspiration!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream Cake

Amanda

Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream Cake. Start early, plan ahead – this cake needs 8+ hours to set into between layers.

5 from 2 votes

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 1 day d

Cook Time 30 minutes mins

Total Time 1 day d 30 minutes mins

Course Desserts

Servings 8 – 12

Ingredients

  

1x2x3x

• 2 – 1 1/2 quart containers of chocolate peanut butter swirl ice cream
• 2 cups chocolate cookie crumbs coarse
• 1 jar of chocolate fudge sauce I used Smuckers Chocolate Fudge Topping 12oz
• 1 cup peanut butter
• 1/4 cup karo syrup
• 1 tub Extra Creamy Whipped Topping 8 oz, refrigerated
• Reese’s Pieces candies Mini PB Cups, sprinkles, etc for decorating
• Springform pan parchment paper,

Instructions

 

• Prep your pan. You’ll need a 9″ springform pan (or whatever size you have will work) and we’ll be using just the ring. Toss the ring in the freezer.
• Note: You could use the whole pan, but think it’s simpler to use parchment paper and a flat surface rather than the base.
• Remove one container of ice cream and let it soften at room temp. We don’t want to melt it, we want it softened. After about 20 minutes I plop the ice cream out into a large mixing bowl. If the center is too hard to beat, I cut the ice cream into fourths and let it soften a bit more.
• Beat ice cream until it is soft and creamy – like the texture of soft serve.
• Remove springform from freezer. You’ll want to place a piece of parchment paper on top of a flat, appropriate sized base. I use a cake carrier base – a cookie sheet, cutting board or large serving plate would work well too. Place your springform on top of parchment paper.
• Scrape ice cream into springform and place in freezer.
• Prep your cookie crumbs. Hopefully you won’t be doing any prepping here because you bought a bag of chocolate cookie crumbs in your bulk section, but if not, get to scraping that cream out and crush the cookies.
• Heat the fudge sauce up so it’s easily stirred and can be poured. Try 15 seconds, stir, 10 seconds & stir (if necessary). This doesn’t need to be molten lava – just barely warm and easily poured.
• In a microwave safe bowl, combine peanut butter and karo syrup. Microwave for 20 seconds, stir, return to microwave for 15 seconds and stir until thoroughly combined.
• Remove cake from freezer. Spread an even layer of cookie crumbs over ice cream. Drizzle chocolate fudge sauce evenly over cookie crumbs and drizzle peanut butter sauce over fudge sauce. Using a spatula or fork, gently & evenly spread/swirl fudge and peanut butter over cookie crumbs.
• Cover cake (another piece of parchment paper works fine) and return to freezer. Let cake set overnight.
• In the morning, remove your second container of ice cream and let it soften. Repeat process as in step 3 & 4.
• Scrape ice cream on top of cookie/fudge/pb layer and evenly smooth out. Recover with parchament paper and return cake to freezer. It should sit for a few hours – at least 5-6, preferably 8. The longer, the better.
• Remove parchment paper for top & bottom of cake. Remove cake from springform. I gently loosen the clamp on side and carefully wiggle & loosen sides of cake with a butter knife. I hear rubbing a hot rag on the outside of the pan helps if you’re having problems, but it always releases pretty easily for me.
• Using a spatula, frost cake with whipped topping – I used the whole container. Decorate with sprinkles, candy, whatever you’d like.
• Return cake to freezer, covered, until ready to serve.
• Let cake sit at room temp for 5 -10 minutes before cutting and serving. Cake is easily cut with a knife run under hot water.
• Enjoy. Store covered in freezer.

Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!