The Reese's Ice Cream Cake. Brownie. Better than cake and better than ice cream.

Occasionally, this sinfully sweet, rich, soft, chewy, flavorful and chocolaty cake arrives on our birthdays. Your favorite bite will be a cool slide of the cake from your fork, into your mouth, crunch through the magic shell chocolate, bite down into the cold ice cream with reese's candy and brownie to sandwich it with. Keep biting, getting cold and then the flavors mix and you are ready for your next bite.

My mom used to buy my dad an ice cream cake back when Baskin Robbins first offered them - I think it was the 90s lol. Eventually, she got sick of paying for them and decided to come up with her own way of making one.

Her original recipe includes: Chocolate Ice Cream with peanut butter mixed into it by hand. (you will see the technique of the consistency that you would do this - in a later step) once she had her peanut butter chocolate ice cream, she'd put it over her sheet brownie and decorate after it was set.

My take: I can't stand that much chocolate!! hahaha. Well...maybe I just don't like chocolate ice cream. Anyways, I make mine with vanilla and I put all that chocolate on top...for contrast, of course. ;)

My cousin - Lynne - suggested that you could even take this a step further and make them into cupcakes by baking the brownies in.. silicone cups, maybe, and layering from there. Once done - you can eat out of the cup or peel it off. :) Then it would be Ice Cream Cupcakes!

Taster-Beware! This sh*t is bananas.

Step 1: Whatcha Need

Reese's. You can choose whichever variety you'd like. I used minis and my mom chops the regular cups up.

Ice cream, your choice - chocolate or vanilla are classic and meld well with the other flavors.

Brownie. While my mom always baked hers, and I bake mine, she's got moola and she bought a sheet brownie at the store last time she made one. (I used dollar store boxes haha.)

Magic shell (chocolate topping that hardens when it gets cold)

Fudge topping or hershey's chocolate topping.

Caramel or Butterscotch? - I think that's the one my mom uses but I like caramel!

(stuff for preparations - bowls/pans/etc.) Maybe even a spring form pan for easy release. :)

Step 2: Bottoms Up!

First, prepare your bottom. Whether you really want cake (ewww), or the lovely brownie!!!

Bake as needed, or buy the big one that is already made. I just got mix from the dollar store and I doubled it because they don't give you much in the box.

(For transportation reasons I bought a cheapo foil pan - never again. Well...it's nice if you don't want dishes, but it sucks to cut the cake in.)

When the brownie has cooled , or not , you need to put it in the freezer to make it get cold and hard for the next step.

Step 3: Ice Cream Time!

Take your ice cream out and let it set for a few mins. (You want it to be like the moment you bring it home from the store and you know it's fine, but it has to get back in the freezer.)

Don't let it melt. That's the last thing you need. You want soft, creamy, spreadable consistency. You can look at my photos and see how it started, and then after I let it set for a minute, it became spreadable.

**** If you wanted to mix the peanut butter into your ice cream, now would be the time. When you get it soft enough to mix, you can incorporate your PB and then re-freeze so that it doesn't melt. THEN, take it back out, let it get a little soft, and apply to your cake. ****

Spread your ice cream over the brownie (which you just got out of the freezer), and you will notice that you aren't getting any flaking of the brownie "skin", because of how cold it is. This makes for best "icing" for your cake/brownie/ice cream cake.

Once you have it perfectly covered and smooth, and level, you can pop it back into the freezer. If you really wanted to, you could repeat this step (less ice cream both times, for thinner layers), and then freeze again to let that set up.

Step 4: Decorate With Sin.

I put the Sweet effects on first, to make the contrast and spacing, and "design" desired. I also like using vanilla because all of these toppings show up really well. (And taste amazing.)

Press your Reese's candies into the ice cream quickly, because you don't want the cake to melt. Then you can drizzle with your "amber topping" , caramel or butterscotch. Once you have those done, you can drizzle over that - with the magic shell, and then put it into the freezer to set again. (This will be the last step until you take it out to serve.)

Step 5: Finish and Serve.

Now, if that wasn't enough topping for you, more can be added while serving. You can use hershey's chocolate or a hot fudge topping (like a sundae) and take it from there, based on your preference.

Cutting this bad boy is tough. That's why it's nice to use a sturdy metal pan that can take on this task. BUT, the foil is "okay" for ease of use. (Not ease of cutting, lol, tore into the foil bottom.)

Toughness aside - once you're done cutting and serving.., the cake/brownie cake reaches a great temperature and it's perfectly timed for consumption. First few bites will be strong, then the rest get easier and sometimes you want more. Other times, you're poisoned with chocolate.

That is the Reese's Ice Cream Cake. Brownie. Better than cake and better than ice cream.