Ice Cream Cake with Circus Animal Crust {Lightened Up}

This  Ice Cream Cake with Circus Animal Crust is super easy, and made on the lighter side, with a crust that will bring you back to your child hood. It’s great for kids and adults alike! 

We are partyin’ AGAIN guys.

I know there has been a lot of celebration-ing with the Strawberry Freeze and the Skinny Peanut Butter Krispie Bars, but today is the Animal Crackers  birthday!

Who doesn’t love animal crackers? We all grew up eating them, pretending they were our pets and making pretend Zoos out of them.

The last 2 points may have been just me though. Moving on.

Plus. They taste like funfetti cake. As you’ve seen with the funfetti breakfast quinoa, Vegan Cake Batter Cashew butter and funfetti baked oatmeal cupcakes…I sort of LOVE funfetti.

I decided I couldn’t pass up the chance to celebrate, and make an ice cream cake that has been on my “to-do” list for all the evers.

How-ev-er, it didn’t go quite as planned. Grab your coffee’s peeps because I have a saga to share with ya’ll.

Everything started off fabbity-fab. I had this great idea to make a crust out of Circus Animal Cookies (My secret guilty pleasure) instead of a typical graham crust. I got it all crushed up and mixed it with some coconut oil, and popped it into the freezer. Things were just rollin’ along. I was p-u-m-p-e-d.

I filled it with ice cream and then made the filling with white chocolate, more Circus Animals (because why not?) and some more oil and some cream (again, why not? Go big or go home I always say) and poured it on. After another layer of ice-cream, back into the freezer it went. To say I was psyched is an understatement. How could this much yum go wrong?

The psyched-osity (is that a word?) grew when I took the cake from it’s pan and it looked ah-may-zing. My brain almost exploded from adorable-osity.

I took pictures. I fell in love. I dreamed of running through field of flowers, hand in hand with this Circus Animal Ice Cream Cake, singing love songs and then sipping wine under a big oak tree.

And then…I cut into it.

Fun fact that I didn’t know: Coconut oil is the secret ingredient in “Magic Shell” that makes it freeze directly on contact with ice cream.

Yep. My chocolate/coconut oil layer and the Circus Animal crust was harder than the hardest rock you could ever imagine. That might be an exaggeration. But, it was HARD.

The crust and the middle layer didn’t cut pretty…at all. They cracked and made weird looking pieces with chunks sticking out all over the place. It reminded my of my hair when I wake up in the morning guys.

I might have cried a little. I lied. It might have been a lot.

Picking myself up from my puddle of tears (I also may be a little over dramatic) I decided to take pictures of the sticky-outy cracked pieces anyway. So, that is what you see here.

After much consideration, and talking to other bloggy friends, I decided to still post the pictures. I’m being totally honest that it didn’t work and I have fails. And, you know what, I am ok with that.

The most important reason I decided to share this cake with you though? HOLY FLYING MONKEYS, THIS IS THE BEST THING I HAVE EVER EATEN. I am seriously not exaggerating. For once.

The bits that had coconut oil were hard to eat….but every bite was worth it. Mr. FFF and I face planted right into this.

Our stomachs don’t have eyes. They don’t care about weird sticky-outty bits.

Having told you this saga, I still wanted to give you a recipe that worked. However, making a whole other ice-cream cake just for 2 people is a little crazy. Once you eat one whole ice cream cake between 2 people…you don’t really want another one ya know?

So, I redid parts of this recipe for ya’ll so that it actually works and cuts beautifully once you make it into a full cake. The recipe you see here is the actual, working recipe and it tastes FAN-FREAKING-TASTIC. But, I decided to keep these pictures to show ya that I am a real person and I make mistakes. A lot.

So, let’s celebrate the birth of the cutest crackers known to man.

Even if you didn’t make pretend zoos with them.

Recipe

Ice Cream Cake with Circus Animal Crust {Lightened Up}

5 from 17 votes

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Serves: 10

Prep: 30 minutes minutes

Cook: 4 hours hours

Total: 4 hours hours 30 minutes minutes

Ingredients

For the Crust:

• 2 Cups Circus Animal Crumbs about 2 heaping cups of full Circus Animals
• 2 Tbsp Butter Melted

For the Layers:

• 1 1.75 Quart Container of low fat vanilla ice cream about 6 cups total
• 8 Oz White chocolate
• 1 Tbsp Heavy whipping cream
• 1 Tbsp Canola oil or any very light flavored oil
• 1 Cup Circus animal crumbs
• 1 8 oz Package Light Cool Whip
• Additional cool whip for decorating optional
• Sprinkles for decorating optional

Instructions

For the Crust:

• Lightly spray a 9 inch Spring Form Panwith cooking spray and set aside.
• In alarge food processor, crush the Circus Animals until they make fine crumbs.
• In alarge bowl,mix together the Circus Animal Crumbs and the melted butter and mix until the crumbs are well coated.
• Press the crumbs into the bottom of the spring form pan, making sure you pack them in nice and tight. Freeze for 24 hours.

Prepare the Layers:

• Thaw 3 1/2 cups of the ice cream until very soft, and spread over the frozen crust. Pop it back into the freezer until its firm.

Circus Animal Layer:

• Process an additional 1 cup of Circus Animals into crumbs using your food processor.
• In a large, microwave safe bowl, melt the chocolate at 20 second intervals on a half power setting, stiring between each interval, until smooth.
• Quickly stir in the heaving whipping cream, oil and the Circus animal crumbs. The mixture will turn very thick, almost like a ganache.
• Pour over the frozen ice cream layer, spreading quickly to avoid melting the underlying ice cream. Place back in freezer until firm and set.

Final Layer:

• In a large bowl, thaw the rest of the ice cream until soft and then mix with the cool whip.
• Pour over the chocolate layer, making sure the top is nice and smooth. Refrigerate until completely firm and set, at least 4 hours - overnight.
• Decorate with more cool whip and sprinkles, if desired.
• DEVOUR *

Tips & Notes:

* To serve: let it thaw on the counter for a couple of minutes before slicing, and use a VERY sharp and VERY hot knife to cut the slices, reheating the knife with hot water between each slice.

Nutrition Disclaimer

Recipes written and produced on Food Faith Fitness are for informational purposes only.

Author: FoodFaithFitness

Course:Dessert

Cuisine:American

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P.s It’s Good Friday. One of the most important days of the Christian Faith. Enjoy it and remember it’s reason! xoxo

Want more easy, frozen desserts?

Skinny Frozen Carrot Cake Cheesecake

Skinny Chocolate Peanut Butter Krispie Cheesecake Bars 

Strawberry Freeze 

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