Ice Cream Pie

My brother was home this week, so my mom and I wanted to make a dessert he would like. This has ice cream, candy, and cookies, the perfect combination of a dessert, so of course everyone loved this.

This idea is from the Pioneer Woman.

Ingredients:
-2 pints vanilla ice cream
-5 Reese's cups
-7 Oreos (5 inside the pie, and 2 to crumble on top)
-8 oz whipped cream
-Graham cracker pie crust

Chop the Reese's into pieces, and crush the Oreos.

Mix both into the ice cream.

Spread the ice cream mixture into the pie crust.
Freeze for about 2 hours. Spread whipped cream on top.
Sprinkle with Oreo crumbs. Freeze for at least 2 more hours.

It helped to take it out of the freezer for 10-15 minutes before
serving so it was a little easier to cut.

I don't normally have seconds when I have cake or pie, but for this one I just had to because it was so good. Everyone in my family agreed that this was really good, and I will be trying more cookie and candy combinations soon.

Americana Ice Cream Cupcakes

Happy Memorial Day!! My family hosts a picnic the Sunday before every Memorial Day and my dad wanted me to come up with a dessert recipe to serve the family. The only problem was that J. and I spent the weekend in Sandusky at Becky's lake house and then drove home with only a few hours to spare for a recipe. Enter the ice cream cupcake recipe from Bubbly Nature Creations the cupcakes are adorable and great for summer due to the addition of the ice cream. I adapted this recipe to help it fit my time constraints and my taste.

Other Memorial Day Recipes: Red, White and Blue Sangria.

Ingredients: 
Cake
-Stars and Stripes Funfetti cake mix and the ingredients on the box to make cake
-Cupcake liners
-1/4 cup sprinkles to mix with batter optional

Ice Cream
-3 cups of ice cream of your choice

Whipped Cream Frosting:
-Cool Whip whipped cream frosting

Spoon about a tablespoon of cake mix into the cupcake liner.
Do not do more than that, the cake mix will rise!! You just want a little bit of cake.
You don't want to cook these too long, mine were done after about 8-10 minutes.

I used Stars and Stripes Funfetti for my cake. 

  

Once the cupcakes have cooled, top with the softened ice cream.

Top with whipped cream frosting and sprinkles right before serving.

                                      

These were refreshing and so cute! I really liked that these were small because I served them at a picnic and after you've had a whole plate of food it's nice to enjoy something sweet but small. One problem I did have was that I overfilled the cupcakes before baking them and I ended up with full sized cupcakes -- I think using a tablespoon to measure the batter really alleviates that problem. Overall these were a huge success and perfect for adapting to other holidays or events.