Sign in Subscribe
How We Made Our Tasty Ice Cream Cupcakes
Dessert

How We Made Our Tasty Ice Cream Cupcakes

Kyra

•7 minutes to read

This year Zoey requested ice cream cake for her birthday party and as I always serve cupcakes I ended up turning our go-to recipe, taken from Princess Pinky Girl and their Copycat Dairy Queen Ice Cream Cake, into cupcakes! It was so simple and I was able to use the excess ice cream I thawed to make a small cake I surprised them with much later.

Pinterest geared image showing my post title, images from below, and my main URL.

Background

For the last several years the kids wanted an ice cream cake on their birthday which started with, the first year, me making it before they quickly took control over the cake themselves. These cakes included:

How We Made a Simple and Delicious Ice Cream Cake
For Ada’s birthday this last summer we ended up making our own ice cream cake. It turned out great and I can totally see doing the same for future birthdays and maybe even parties!
Simply KyraKyra
Ada and Zoey’s Epic Homemade Ice Cream Cakes
Last summer, after making a homemade ice cream cake for Ada’s birthday the year before both girls requested an ice cream cake. The cakes turned out amazing! Though they were bit… rich.
Simply KyraKyra
Zoey’s Birthday Ice Cream Sandwich Cake
This year for Zoey’s birthday we combined brownie, ice cream, whipped cream, maraschino cherries, sprinkles, and an icing writer... in case you’re now wondering how come check it out here!
Simply KyraKyra

The original recipe I used, if interested, was taken from Princess Pinky Girl's blog post: Copycat Dairy Queen Ice Cream Cake.

This year Zoey requested the cake for her party and as I normally just do cupcakes, simpler blowing out candles and dishing, I used the recipe as cupcakes instead and got the opportunity to use my new silicon cupcake tray I had recently bought. That said I think it would work just as well in a regular muffin pan with silicon liners too.

Making It

Just like when making the cake version we started with crushing Oreos, mixing it with melted butter, and baking the mixture to re-harden.

Image shows a metal bowl with thin Oreos surrounded by two unopened packages, one squished package, and one empty thin mint package.
The kids like crushing the Oreos but I find it's quicker to crush them in the sleeve before adding them to the bowl. We had some thin mint Oreos left so I combined both together.
Image looking down at metal bowl shows the oreos squished and a melted jug of butter next to it.
I melt the butter in a measuring jug so it's easy to pour once the Oreos are ready.
Now the jug is empty and the oreos are glistening in the metal bowl.
Once the butter is added mix it all together so it's evenly coated.
Two small cookie sheets with parchment hold the crushed glistening oreos next to the ice cream container.
Then spread it on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet to bake.
Now the oreos look more matte and harder as they sit cooling next to each other on the trays.
After baking we left the trays out to cool until we were ready to make the middle layer.

Unlike with the previous cakes Zoey chose to have mint ice cream by combining Costco plain vanilla ice cream with Girl Scouts Thin Mint Bites we also bought from Costco. I wasn't sure about the bites' size so I tried to crush them like the Oreos before deciding to just individually cut them.... I can't remember if I cut all of them or stopped partway through but either way the resulting ice cream was great. On that note I love how we can make this cake so different just by the ice cream flavor or add-ins.

Same metal bowl with brown spheres in it next to a bag of girl scouts thin mints Bites.
At first I thought we could crush them like the Oreos.
Now we're closet to the bowl with cutting board next to it. Some of the spheres are cut in half showing brown inside, lined with whilteness, and a thin brown outside.
But ended up cutting the in half in case they were a chocking hazard.

Once the ice cream was a bit thawed I mixed it together with the broken Bites before placing a spoonful in each cupcake slot and flattening it out. I realized I had a lot of ice cream so I put some in a small square glass casserole dish to surprise the kids with later. With that first layer done I placed them in the freezer to set along with the leftover ice cream so it didn't melt too much.

Once set it was time for the center layer. I tossed a lid-less jar of chocolate fudge sauce in the microwave to soften, pulled the trays out of the freezer, and divided up the cookie bits amongst them all. I then used a spoon to add dollops of fudge sauce to each cupcake before microwaving a second jar for the center layer of the cake.

There are two white speckled silicon cupcake trays next to a square glass casserole dish and open jarred of smuckers hot fudge sauce. All have cookies with white ice cream showing through.
After dividing the cookie bits between the cupcakes and cake it was time to add the fudge sauce.
There are two white speckled silicon cupcake trays next to a square glass casserole dish. All have glistening black insides.
Though looking back I'm sure you could pre-mix the two together and then add it too... that may be simpler.
Really fudge coated glass square casserole dish next to two emptly fudge jars.
I didn't have enough fudge for the cake so heated another jar and then had too much... just an fyi if doing the same.

After I finished I put the trays back in the freezer to set while pulling out the rest of the mint-y ice cream to thaw on the counter. Dividing the ice cream between all the cupcake spots and the cake is the last step for the cupcake base before letting it fully harden in the freezer.

The same silocone trays with while ice cream speckled with brown chunks.
With the last bit of ice cream added it was time to put back in the freezer for later.
The glass casserole dish topped with plastic wrap and an elastic band holding it on.
The glass casserole dish was easier to seal after the last layer than the silicon cupcake tray.

Normally I bring sprinkles and whipped cream to the birthday party mainly so it's simpler to store ahead of time but also so we can decorate according to the kids' preference. That said, this is ice cream cake so the whip cream needed to be frozen too! Thus after it was fully frozen I debated how to decorate them. Looking back I could've kept then in their silicon tray but I was also worried it wouldn't seal well so I transferred the cupcakes to a casserole dish, decorated them with whipped cream, added sprinkles, and then covered them with plastic wrap.

Whipped cream topped cupcakes with silpat between set in glass casserole dish between sprinkles and empty liner.
At first I used a silpat liner between the cupcakes hoping it would protect them... but then realized I could only fit ten in the dish and I was running out of room.
The glass casserole dish is now filled with 5 by 3 whipped cream and sprinkled ice cream cupcakes.
I ended up fitting fifteen in one 9 by 13 inch casserole dish.
Matching the other image but now there's nine in a square glass casserole dish.
And nine in the other.

Word of warning they kind of stuck to the glass so debating next time either using removable liners or maybe just pulling them out five or so minutes before serving so they could thaw a bit. Let me know in the comments below if you have any ideas.

Since Zoey's party was in our home I didn't have to worry about transporting the glass casserole dishes or the ice cream thawing ahead of time. I simply pulled out the large casserole dish when we were ready for dessert, plated Zoey's with a candle, sang Happy Birthday, then dished all the other ones. We ended up not even using the smaller casserole dish so it stayed in the freezer until supper that night when we had another before moving the extra ones to a Stasher bag for longer term storage.

And as for the cake? I kept meaning on pulling it out but timing was never right especially as the kids knew about Zoey's leftover brownie ice cream cake so that was requested often instead. We ended up eating the cake itself about two months later. Looking at it critically the cake didn't look as nice anymore as the sprinkles and whipped cream had flattened a bit but it still tasted fine.

I hope this helped you out and I hope your week is going great. Let me know if you make this by sharing in the comments below! Also how did you or how will you customize it?

If you’re interested in getting any of my future blog updates I normally share them to my Facebook page and Instagram account. You’re also more than welcome to join my email list located right under the search bar or underneath this post.

Browse Related Topic(s)

Dessert Food & Dessert Costco Freezer Birthday

Related Posts

Latest Posts