R2D2 Ice Cream Cake

William earned a reward for his work doing summer chores and he got to pick his own meal for me to make. One part of the meal was this R2D2 ice cream cake, which actually turned out pretty darn cute! I am documenting the recipe here so we can do it again sometime if we want to.

R2D2 Ice Cream Cake

Ingredients:

• 3 large eggs
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla
• 1/4 cup and 1/3 cup granulated sugar, divided
• Powdered sugar
• 1 can blue food color spray
• 1 can silver food color spray
• 1.5 quart vanilla ice cream, softened
• 1 chocolate sandwich cookie, deconstructed
• 1 red gum drop, M&M or other small round red candy
• grey/silver frosting

Directions:

1. Separate egg whites and yolks. Allow to stand at room temperature for 30 minutes. 
2. Meanwhile, grease a 13x9-inch baking pan. Line bottom of pan with parchment paper. Grease paper. Set aside. 
3. In a medium bowl, sift together flour and baking powder. Set aside.
4. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. 
5. In a medium bowl, beat egg yolks and vanilla on high speed for about 5 minutes or until thick and lemon yellow color. Gradually beat in the 1/4 cup sugar, beating on high speed until sugar is almost dissolved.
6. Thoroughly wash beaters. 
7. In another bowl, beat egg whites on medium speed until soft peaks form. Gradually beat in the 1/3 cup sugar, beating until stiff peaks form. Fold the egg yolk mixture into beaten egg whites. 
8. Sprinkle flour mixture over egg mixtures. Fold in gently until just combined. Spread batter evenly in prepared pan.
9. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes or until cake springs back when lightly touched. Immediately loosen edges of cake from pan and turn out onto a towel sprinkled with powdered sugar. Remove parchment paper. Cool completely.
10. To assemble cake, line a 1 1/2-quart bowl with plastic wrap. Cut half of the cake into 3-inch triangles. Cut remaining cake into eight rectangles. Spray triangles with blue spray. Spray rectangles with silver spray. Press cake triangles, pointed-side down and color-side facing out, into bottom of lined bowl, forming a circle and overlapping cake if necessary. Press rectangles of cake around sides of lined bowl, fitting together tightly. Cut cake pieces if necessary to fit. Freeze cake-lined bowl at least 1 hour.
11. Set your ice cream out of the freezer about 15 minutes before you want to fill your cake so it can soften.
12. Line cake bowl with plastic wrap. Spread softened ice cream into plastic covered cake-lined bowl, pressing to fill bowl and eliminate any gaps. Cover and freeze for 2 hours or until firm.
13. When firm, lift plastic wrap and remove from ice cream. Return ice cream to cake-lined bowl.
14. Press ice cream gently into cake. Carefully invert cake and ice cream onto a serving plate. Remove plastic wrap from cake. If desired, working quickly, pipe grey frosting around the seam where the blue triangles and the silver rectangles meet and around the base of the cake. Using additional frosting, attach the two halves of a chocolate cookie, the red circle candy, and pipe additional silver accents for details. Store cake in freezer until ready to serve.

Image from the cookbook showing how to cut the cake pieces.

Spraying blue

Spraying silver

First layer

Second layer

I used an entire tube of black writing gel to make one carton of store-bought white frosting into a grey color. You don't end up needing very much, so I am going to have to use up the rest with some cupcake or graham crackers or something.

When making this, I had to order the spray food coloring from Amazon.

Silver: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005KTVG86?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details&th=1

Blue: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0000VOCLM?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details&th=1

I also forgot to line my cake-lined bowl with plastic wrap before I added the ice cream, but everything seemed to work out just fine. My guess is using that layer of wrap between the ice cream and cake during the initial molding process just keeps any melted ice cream of messing up your cake or spray coloring. Thankfully, I worked fast and my ice cream wasn't too runny, so everything turned out fine, but I would certainly try to remember that step next time, because with a cake this intricate, you don't want to mess up all the hard work of mixing, baking, cutting and coloring the cake.

The original recipe called for just 1 quart of ice cream, but I bought a 1.5 quart container from the store and it took the entire thing to fill up my cake. I also used this old, ceramic, olive green 2-quart bowl with pour spouts as my mold, just for future reference so I don't have to wonder again what bowl to use. The recommended 1 1/2-quart bowl in the recipe probably would have worked, but it is likely going to fill up all the way to the top and I didn't want to risk running out of room.