Have your cake (and ice cream) and eat it to: Birthday cake ice cream for the birthday girl

I no longer have a need for Coldstone Creamery in my life anymore. For any of you birthday cake ice cream addicts like me, you may want to read on. I love ice cream with stuff in it: brownies, cookie dough, cookies, pie crust, candy, etc. My all-time favorite is birthday cake ice cream. R knows this weakness of mine and will regularly take me to get the “massage ice cream” (aka Coldstone Creamery). For any of you not familiar with Coldstone, it is an ice cream chain that puts a couple of scoops of ice cream on an ice cold piece of marble and “massages” the topping of your choice in with metal paddles. This “massaging” in of your topping ensures that through the last bite you still have topping to eat not like the places where they just put the topping on top so your just left with plain ice cream at the bottom. I usually go in to Coldstone wanting to get something new, but always end up getting the delicious birthday cake ice cream with yellow cake mixed in. It is great because you really get to have your cake (and ice cream) and eat it too. Anyways, it is a sad day for Coldstone as they have lost me as a customer because I now can make birthday cake ice cream at home! I was inspired to try to make this by my friend, J, who recently made it in her Vitamix. I unfortunately did not make this in the Vitamix, so those of you without a VM can try this too. Oh, and it doesn’t require an ice cream maker either because I discovered this summer that you definitely don’t need an ice cream maker to make delicious homemade ice cream.

Here’s what I did:

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups skim milk

1/2 c granulated sugar

2/3 c cake mix (I used yellow, but I’m sure you can use whatever flavor you’d like)

1 1/2 c heavy whipping cream

1 tsp vanilla extract

sprinkles

Heat milk, sugar and cake mix in saucepan over medium low heat. Stir mixture constantly until it starts to bubble. Remove from heat and transfer to a metal bowl. Cool to room temperature (or alternatively, stick it in the refrigerator). Stir in vanilla and heavy whipping cream. Put ice cream mixture into freezer. Every 45 minutes, take mixture out and stir vigorously. After 2nd cycle of stirring, add in sprinkles. It’s up to you to add in how ever much you want. After 2nd cycle, you should start to notice that ice cream is crystallizing on the sides of the bowl. Make sure during the stirring, that you scrap this off the sides of the bowl and stir in. I usually do this cycle 4 times. For best results, freeze overnight. This will ensure that you have the same consistency as store-bought ice cream. This was so easy to make and it turned out better than expected. This was one of the best presents that I could’ve given to myself. Although my new (old) 30-year body (and thighs) might not agree. ( :