Last year, I made my own birthday cake for the first time. Between there not being much I could do for a pandemic birthday, and having some cake ideas I wanted to try, I decided to make my own cake. This year, I figured that I could also film and write about my experience to share on both my my YouTube channel and blog. That’s when I had the idea to make a cake inspired by one of my favorite childhood ice cream flavors: Cold Stone Creamery’s Mint Mint Chocolate Chocolate Chip. And that is precisely what I did!
Make sure to also check out the video of how I made this cake:
Disclosure: There are Amazon affiliate links provided in the post below. If you click on any of the Amazon links and make a purchase, I do get a small percentage of the sale which helps me pay for my ingredients and my website. I genuinely use anything that I link, and I want to make it easy for you to find these ingredients and kitchen tools, too, if you want to utilize them!
My 2020 Birthday Cake:
Before we get into this year’s cake, last year’s cake was made of Oreo© Funfetti cake layers, Tillamook chocolate and vanilla ice cream filling, vanilla Swiss Meringue Buttercream, tie-dye/multi-color drip, Oreo© cookie pieces and rainbow sprinkles. It turned out well and I definitely learned a lot because it was my very first ice cream cake.
Ingredients:
- Cakey Brownie Layers (click here for Thomas Joseph’s video recipe)
- Fudgy Brownies (also in Thomas Joseph’s video)
- Mint Cookie Ice Cream (click here for the my recipe)
- Mint Swiss Meringue Buttercream (click here for the recipe)
- Whipped Cream
- Chocolate Ganache
- Waffle Cones
- Mini Chocolate Chips
Notes:
- For the cakey brownies, I prepped three 6 inch cake pan by greasing them using the wrapper from the butter, flouring them with some all-purpose flour, and then making little circles of parchment paper to line the bottoms of the pans. I used a food scale to measure out the batter and evenly divide it between the pans. Finally, I spread them into flat, even layers before baking them at 350°F for approximately 30-35 minutes.
- For the fudgy brownies, I decided to spread them onto a sheet pan because I wanted them to be a little flat when I cut super small squares. That way, they look like actual mini brownies on top of the cake. Once the fudgy brownies were baked and completely chilled, I used a chef’s knife to cut them into small squares that were about ½ to ¾ of an inch in size.
- For the Mint Cookie Ice Cream, after mixing the cookies into the freshly made mint ice cream, I spread it onto a sheet pan and smoothed it into a flat, even layer. After covering it with plastic wrap, I placed it in the freezer until it was completely frozen solid. If you try making a cake like this, I highly recommend doing this step the day before assembling the cake. Once the ice cream is frozen, I took a large cookie cutter with a diameter of approximately 4 ½ inches and cut circles in the ice cream. While I only needed 4 ice cream discs, I cut 6 just in case. I also removed the excess ice cream and placed it in a container to enjoy later. I then placed this back in the freezer until it was time to assemble the cake.
Looking for some 6 inch cake pans? Here are some options:
Step 1: Layer and Frost the Cake
Add a dollop of buttercream to act as the glue to keep the cakey brownie on the cake board. Then, add one of the cakey brownie layers and center it on the cake board. Next, add 2 discs of ice cream and center them on the cakey brownie. Using a piping bag fitted with a Wilton 1A tip, pipe rings of buttercream around the ice cream, this will help hold the ice cream inside of the cake if it melts while you work on it. Then, add another cakey brownie layer and repeat until the rest of the cake is stacked. Once you place your top cake layer, add some buttercream and use an offset spatula to spread it into a thin, even layer on the outside of the cake. Once that’s done, pop it into the freezer for 5-10 minutes.
Next, add more buttercream and smooth it all over the cake. Use a combination of a cake scraper and an offset spatula to smooth the buttercream. What’s really cool is that somehow this cake ended up getting a lovely ombré effect while I used the warmed metal cake scraper. I didn’t add any separate buttercream colors, it just naturally did this as I scraped and smoothed the buttercream. Once you’re as happy as can be with your smooth buttercream, pop it back into the freezer for 15-20 minutes.
Wilton Piping Tips Starter Set:
Wilton Piping Tips Flower Master Set:
Step 2: Prep the Decorations Items
While the cake chills in the freezer, prep the following:
First, make the whipped cream. To a large mixing bowl, add 1/2 cup of granulated sugar and 1 ½ cups of heavy whipping cream. Using either a hand mixer or stand mixer, whip on a medium-low speed until it achieves soft peaks. Add 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract and then whip until it achieves stiff peaks. Pop that in the fridge until you are ready to pipe the whipped cream.
If you’re looking for a hand mixer, here is the hand mixer I personally use:
Second, make the chocolate ganache for the chocolate drip. To a microwave safe bowl, add ½ cup of chocolate chips, and ¼ cup of heavy whipping cream. Heat in the microwave in short increments of 15-30 seconds, stirring in between each heating. Once it is completely melted. Let that sit at room temperature for about 5 minutes, which is when you should be ready to use it.
Third, prep the waffle cone pieces. Cut the bottoms off a few waffle cones (4-6 waffle cones). They do not have to be super precise, I just eyeballed it. Then take one of the leftover tops of the waffle cones and break it into pieces. I decided to add these as extra decoration because when I was younger and I wanted to extra extra treat myself, I would get my ice cream in a waffle cone or waffle bowl. To take it to the top tier of treating myself, I would get the glorious chocolate dipped waffle cone!
Here are the waffle cones I used for this cake:
Step 3: Decorate the Cake
Pipe a shell border of whipped cream along the bottom of the cake using a Wilton 1M tip. To pipe the border like this, apply some pressure to the piping bag as you barely move to the left and then release pressure as you pull to the right side. Then add some mini chocolate chips on top of the whipped cream border.
Then, use a Wilton 1M tip and a Wilton 4B tip to make little dollops and swirls of whipped cream in a curved cascade on the front of the cake. The use of two different tips and piping different sizes and shapes makes the cascade more interesting and fun at which to look.
Once you are done piping the cascade, add a few of the mini brownie squares, some waffle cone pieces, and some mini chocolate chips. I also decided to cut a few of the mini brownie squares into 4 even smaller brownie pieces because I felt like the cascade was missing something. Add some of these to the cascade as well as more mini chocolate chips.
Note: Add more super mini brownie pieces to the bottom border of the cake because they are so adorable that there needs to be more of them on the cake!
Next, use either a piping bag or plastic squeeze bottle to add the chocolate ganache to the side of the cake. Make sure to do drips of different lengths by squeezing either more ganache (longer drips) or less ganache (shorter drips). After completing the drips around the cake, add a generous amount of the ganache to the top of the cake, and use an offset spatula to smooth it across the top of the cake. Then, using the piping bag fitted with the Wilton 1M tip, carefully mark the top of the cake and then add dollops of whipped cream. The little markings help make sure that the dollops are evenly spaced.
Now, add the tips of the waffle cones to a few of the whipped cream dollops. Then add brownie pieces to the tops of the rest of the dollops, followed by sprinkling mini chocolate chips between the whipped cream mounds.
You’re almost done! I promise! Use the Wilton 1A tip from earlier to pipe some of the mint buttercream into the mini waffle cones to make them look like mini ice cream cones. Top them off with some whipped cream and a mini chocolate chip, and this admittedly over-the-top Mint Mint Chocolate Chocolate Chip inspired birthday ice cream cake (wow, that’s a mouthful) is complete!
Honestly, frozen brownies are a complete pain to cut through and the resulting pieces kind of looked like a hot mess and which is why I didn’t take pictures of them. If you decid to make a cake like this, please just be careful and make sure that you do not cut off any appendages! Also, while cutting the cake, I realized that the ice cream was really melted. The reason for this was that I had the cake sitting out for a long time while decorating it. The pieces would have definitely turned out better if it sat in the freezer overnight. Either way, it was still definitely delicious and totally reminded me of my favorite childhood ice cream!
Thank you so much for checking out this post! Let me know in the comments what you think of this cake!
