Eat: Chocolate-Peanut Ice Cream Cake

Our Christmas this year was pretty laid back, my brother and sister-in-law were gone to California for their honeymoon so it was R & I and my parents. Christmas eve R, my mom and I worked on a puzzle for 4 hours straight. We love puzzles. I got a stack of 8 of them from our "grab bag" style Christmas with my grandparents. This is the one we did: (from here) It took a little while because of the similar colors. It was supposed to glow in the dark but it was a little weak. Still a good puzzle though, difficult but not too frustrating.
 We started another one on Christmas day. It's taken a little bit longer....

My mom told me to make dessert for Christmas. So I went to Pinterest to see what I could find. I picked Chocolate-peanut Ice cream cake from Better Homes and Gardens (here).  Be aware that it takes few hours to make because you have to let the one layer freeze before you add the next and have to let the ice cream sit out a few minutes to soften it.  My crust got a little hard but it was still really good. What better excuse to eat chocolate and vanilla ice cream? :)

Chocolate Peanut Ice Cream Cake
<Printable recipe here>

Here's what you need:
2 cups crushed cookies
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup melted butter
1 quart vanilla ice cream
1 quart chocolate ice cream
1 1/2 cups chopped chocolate covered peanuts
Caramel ice cream topping

The recipe calls for Chocolate covered peanuts. Rather than buy them, I made my own using regular chocolate chips and unsalted peanuts. Just melt the chocolate in the microwave (on 50% power) and throw in the peanuts till coated. Drop them into peanut clusters on waxed paper and let cool. I made them the night before. In the end, the cake takes 1 1/2 cups chopped covered peanuts so you can make some bigger clusters. I made a few single/two peanuts to put on top of the cake.

The cake is made in a 9 x 3inch spring form pan. The first step is to make the crust from crushed up Oreos. I used mostly Oreos because I had them but the rest used the off brand that had fudge cream. You couldn't really tell a difference. If you like mint, you could probably use mint Oreos too, I'm not sure what the color would be though because of the green creme.
The crust is 2 cups crushed cookies 1/4 cup of sugar and 1/2 cup melted butter. Mix this up and then press it on to the bottom and sides of the pan. Bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes. I used a little bit more crumbs and butter and cooked it a little bit longer so I think that's why my crust got hard. If it looks soggy when you take it out of the oven it'll be okay.

From BHG I neglected to take a picture

Let the crust cool on a wire rack for about 15-20 minutes then pop it in the freezer for a while. Set 1 quart of vanilla ice cream out for 15 minutes to soften. It might take longer than 15 depending on your freezer settings. Put the ice cream in a bowl and stir it up to soften it more and mix the more melted parts into the rest. Then spread it on into the crust evenly. When it's firm sprinkle on the chopped chocolate covered peanuts. Then I poured on some caramel ice cream topping.  Freeze it for an hour.

Repeat with 1 quart of chocolate ice cream, except putting on the peanuts. I just put a few whole chocolate covered peanuts on top.  Pretty simple and pretty delicious.

~Enjoy~