Pillsbury test kitchen home economists have heard it all. When they told me
some people were adding melted ice cream to a cake mix, I couldn’t believe
it. Well, that’s precisely what I did with this fun recipe. Choose your
flavor and let the ice cream melt. The only trick is that you must have 2
cups of melted ice cream. For super-premium ice creams with little overrun,
that’s 1 pint frozen. But for less expensive brands with a lot of air piped
in, you’ll need to begin with more than a pint.

I made this cake with several flavors of ice cream and our favorite was a
super-premium from Ben & Jerry’s — cherry Garcia. With cherry and chocolate
pieces and the cream and the eggs in the ice cream, you need little else.
Your liquid, your fat, and your flavorings are all in the melted ice cream.
This recipe works well, too, in a 13- by 9-inch pan.

Serves 16.

INGREDIENTS

  • vegetable oil spray for misting the pan
  • flour for dusting the pan
  • 1 package (18.25 ounces) plain white cake mix
  • 2 cups melted ice cream, your choice of flavor
  • 3 large eggs
  • chocolate marshmallow frosting

    DIRECTIONS

    Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly mist a 12-cup Bundt pan with vegetable oil spray, then dust with
    flour. Shake out the excess flour. Set the pan aside.Place the cake mix, melted ice cream, and eggs in a large mixing bowl.
    Blend with an electric mixer on low speed for 1 minute. Stop the machine and
    scrape down the sides of the bowl with the rubber spatula. Increase the mixer
    speed to medium and beat 2 minutes more, scraping the sides down again if
    needed. The batter should look thick and well blended. Pour the batter into
    the prepared pan, smoothing the top with the rubber spatula. Place the pan in
    the oven.
    Bake the cake until it springs back when lightly pressed with your finger
    and just starts to pull away from the sides of the pan, 38 to 42 minutes.
    Remove the pan from the oven and place it on a wire rack to cool for 20
    minutes. Run a long, sharp knife around the edge of the cake and invert it
    onto a small rack, then invert it again onto a second rack so that the cake
    is right side up to complete cooling, 30 minutes more.
    Meanwhile prepare the Chocolate Marshmallow Frosting, or another frosting
    that would go well with the flavor of the ice cream in the cake. Place the
    cake on a serving platter and frost the top of the cake with clean, smooth
    strokes.