Red Velvet Ice Cream Cake

Tomorrow is my coworker's birthday and I wanted to make a cake. Her favorite dessert is ice cream, so I decided to play around with my first ice-cream cake. I found this red velvet ice cream cake recipe on lifeloveandsugar.com (I have done a few recipes from there and they are so delicious!) I honestly don't love red velvet, but this cake was amazing. It was easy and looked great. I am eager to try more ice cream cake recipes soon. Look how yummy!

Ingredients:

Cake:
1 egg
1/2 cup + 1/8 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup + 1/8 cup oil
1/2 tbsp vinegar
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 oz red food coloring
1 1/4 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1 tbsp cocoa
1/2 tsp baking soda
Ice Cream:
8 oz cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1/8 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla
8 oz cool whip
cake crumbs (from tops of cake)
12 oz of canned cream cheese frosting
Topping:
3/4 cup heavy whipping cream
remainder of cream cheese frosting
1 tsp vanilla

Directions:
First we are going to bake the cakes. Preheat the oven to 350 F and prepare 2 cake pans with grease and flour, set aside. In a large mixing bowl blend together your egg, buttermilk, oil, vinegar, vanilla, and food coloring. In a separate medium bowl, mix together the remaining dry cake ingredients. Slowly add the dry mix to your wet mix. Evenly pour the cake batter into the 2 pans. These are thin cakes we are making, so don't worry if the cake batter barely makes it to the edge of the pans.

Bake the cakes for 20 minutes or until a tooth pick comes out clean. Let the cakes cool in their pans for 10 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack. Once the cakes are completely cooled, take a serrated knife and trim off the domes on the top giving each cake a nice flat surface. Take the extra cake you sliced off and crumble it into a bowl, set aside.

Now lets make the ice cream! In a large bowl mix the cream cheese and sugar until light and fluffy. Mix in the milk and vanilla until blended. Fold in your cool whip and cake crumbles.

There are a few ways to assemble the cake. If you have a spring-form pan (one close in size to the cake pans you used for baking) would be ideal. If you are using a spring-form pan, line the edges with parchment paper to keep the ice cream from sticking. Lay down your first cake slice. Pour 1/3 of the ice cream mixture over the cake, spreading out evenly. On top of the ice cream, spread out 1/2 cup cream cheese frosting. Add another 1/3 of ice cream over the frosting. Slather another 1/2 cup of frosting over the ice cream and finish with your remaining ice cream (the layers should be cake, ice cream, cream cheese, ice cream, cream cheese, ice cream) Place your second layer on cake on top of the ice cream. Wrap and freeze for 5-6 hours or overnight. Once the ice cream is set we can frost!

Beat your heavy whipping cream for 5 minutes or until peaks form. Fold in the remaining cream cheese frosting and vanilla. The original recipe has the frosting on the top only but I decided to frost the whole cake! Apply your frosting as desired. Top with blueberries or strawberries. Freeze until you are ready to serve. Allow the cake to thaw out 10 minutes before cutting. This is going to be your new go-to cake recipe!

It is the perfect cake for a birthday party or 4th of July gathering! We decorated Cobi's office a little and got her some coffee! In case you were wondering, yes, coffee is amazing with this cake! Enjoy! 

What to snack on while you are on the Atkins diet.

We have been on the Atkins diet for almost 2 months now. Not only have we lost weight we are feeling great and full of energy! I have shared a few of my favorite recipes on this blog but I wanted to share some snacks for those moments you are starving but don't want to cheat. Hope these help!


Sugar Free Jell-O. You can do the individual packs or make your own! These are ZERO carbs!



Meat Meat and more Meat! Bring Slices of meat to work with you or get a bag of your favorite pepperonis! You can also pair the meat with cheese! I ate a lot of cheese sticks in the beginning of the diet. Just be aware of your digestive system with consuming so much cheese. I recommend taking a Metamucil pill to help keep things moving smoothing.

Want ice cream? Guess what.... YOU CAN HAVE IT! They have low carb popsicle and fudge sicles! These sugar free popsicles are only 4 carbs and the fudgesicles only 9!
 

Another life saver on the low carb diet are pork rinds! They are 0 carbs and can be used to substitute so many things! Dip them in french onion dip or ranch dip!



I also like to have some tuna fish on hand to have if I' starving (use the sugar free relish for less carbs)

Be very careful about fruit. Some fruit is LOADED with carbs (like apples, grapes, and bananas) If you are dying for some fruit try to eat watermelon or strawberries. They still have a high carb count for the beginning of your diet but if you need a cheat try these instead.

Also great snacks are nuts and beef jerky!

When in doubt if its something you can have, check the carb count. If you need to cheat try to do so in moderation and with healthy carbs. Hope this helps! Good luck!

Peanut Butter Oreo Pudding Trifle

I have made this cream cake many many many times before and I like to make a few changes here and there for a fun new dessert. When shopping I found some peanut butter oreos and decided to give them a try. It was DELICIOUS!

Ingredients:

I pack of Peanut Butter Oreos

1/2 stick of butter, melted

8 oz cream cheese, softened

1 cup powdered sugar

1 large tub of cool whip

1 large box of chocolate pudding & milk to prepare

1 cup peanut butter

Directions:

Take half of the oreos and crumble them in a bag (you can also chop them in a food processor or blender) Lay them on the bottom of your dish and cover with your melted butter. Press the cookies into a crust. Prepare your chocolate pudding according to the package, set aside. 

Blend the cream cheese and sugar until well blended. Fold in half of the cool whip. Take this cream cheese layer and layer it over your oreo crust. Take 1/2 cup peanut butter and spread over the cream cheese layer. Once your chocolate pudding has set, pour over your peanut butter. Take the remaining peanut butter and spread over pudding layer. Top the cake with remaining crumbled oreos. Refrigerate until ready to serve. I promise this will be your new favorite dessert! Enjoy! 

Lemon Curd Cake

I recently made a strawberries and cream cake that was a HUGE hit. I decided to try the cake but put a lemon twist on it (originally found boymeetsbowl.blogspot.com)! It was sweet and the perfect amount of tang. The frosting was light and creamy with lemon curd smothered in between the layers. I am getting hungry just thinking about it!

Ingredients:
Cake:
3 cups cake flour
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
3 cups sugar
1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
7 large eggs
2 tbsp vanilla
1 cup sour cream
Juice of 1 lemon
Frosting:
2 - 8 oz cream cheese, softened
2 sticks unsalted butter
4 cups powdered sugar
1 cup lemon pie filling
Juice from 2 lemons
1 tbsp vanilla

Extra lemon pie filling for layers

Directions:
Just like in the strawberry cake recipe, we are going to start with the frosting so we can allow it to set properly in the refrigerator.  In a large bowl beat the cream cheese and butter until well blended. Slowly add powdered sugar until mixed. Stir in the lemon pie filling, lemon juice, and vanilla. You can add yellow food coloring if you want a brighter yellow to your frosting. Cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge for 2 hours.

While waiting for the frosting, let's bake our cake! Preheat your oven to 350 F. Butter and flour 3 cake pans, set aside.

Sift together the flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda in a medium bowl, set aside.

In a separate bowl, blend your butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating after each one until well blended. Stir in your vanilla and sour cream. Slowly add the flour mixture in parts. Once the batter is all mixed, divide into your 3 prepared cake pans.

Bake for 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Cool the cakes in their pans for 10 minutes. Loosen the sides of the cake with a knife and turn the cakes upside down on a wire rack to finish the cooling process.

Once the cake is completely cooled we can start layering.

Place your first cake layer down, spread 1 tbsp lemon pie filling over the cake and top with 1/4 cup lemon frosting.

Place your next layer of cake on top and continue the lemon pie filling and lemon icing layering.

With your final layer, place only frosting on top and down the sides. I decorated the top of  the cake with fresh lemon slices. Cake taste best refrigerated! Enjoy!

BEST BRIDAL SHOWER EVER!

I recently had a bridal shower this weekend at my Aunt Deb's house and it was AMAZING! Every little detail was perfect! I wanted to share it with you all so you can throw a party as awesome as this! So much work and time went into this shower, but it truly couldn't have been any better!

Deb is an AWESOME baker, so naturally we had a whole table full of sweets! She put labels with each dessert too so guest knew what deliciousness they were eating.

Everything was so yummy! In the kitchen we also had some snacks. (Chicken salad, cheese and cracker trays, pinwheel sandwiches and such)

We had to have a mimosa bar of course! 

For favors, Deb made champagne flutes with the bottoms dipped in chalk paint for guest to write their names on them. All the bridesmaids had glasses that looked like they had black dresses on and my little brothers had a tux! They were so cute!

And here is the beautiful bridal party!

The whole house was decorated so cute as well!

On the way out we had bags to put your champagne flute in and a candy bar for treats to take home!

I had such a blast! We took all of the ribbons from the gifts I opened and made a bouquet for the rehearsal dinner. I looked and felt like a princess all day! Only 2 more months! 

Banana Cream Pie Bites

Johnny and I had our bridal shower & bachelor cookout this weekend! It is safe to say we both had a great time! He did something more casual and cooked out on the grill with some buddies. Trying to be a good house wife I made some desserts! I came across this recipe for mini banana cream pies from www.girlversusdough.com. They were delicious and so cute! I loved the idea of using sugar cookies as the base! I already have tons of recipes spinning in my head for new desserts to make inspired from these. Don't you just want to eat one now?!

Ingredients:

1 (16.5-ounce) roll Pillsbury refrigerated sugar cookies

1 (3.4-ounce) box banana cream pudding, prepared according to package directions and chilled
1 banana
whipped cream for topping

Directions:

First, preheat your oven to 350 F. Grease a 24 mini muffin pan. Divide your sugar cookie dough into small balls and press down into the muffin tin to make the crust for the pies. Bake for 15-16 minutes or until a golden brown. Let them cool in the pan for about 10 minutes before transferring to a wire cooling rack.

While the cups are cooling, prepare the banana pudding. If you are feeling adventurous make your favorite banana pudding recipe to fill them with!

One the cups are cooled and the pudding is chilled and set we can start assembling! Take a small spoon and fill each of the cups with pudding. 

Slice your banana and place on top of the pudding. 

Finish with whipped cream and voila! Serve them immediately to avoid the whipped cream from melting. Enjoy!