Coffee & Cake Ice Cream

Here’s the deal, every time I make a cake and have to trim before frosting it, I hate throwing away the excess. It makes me sad to put those scraps in the garbage. So instead I put them in a ziplock bag and stash them in my fridge. This comes with the rationale that I will save them to make cake balls and pops at another time.

Well, I cleaned out my freezer recently and that day has come. How about coffee and cake all rolled into a delicious ice cream?

To start, I whipped up a creamy coffee-flavored ice cream base, then mixed in two cups of cake scraps after the churning phase. The result was a delicious cakey ice cream.

I had plain chocolate as well as vanilla cake scraps on hand. However, use any type you like or have lying around. The fancier the cake, the more interesting and flavorful the resulting ice cream is. Feeling inventive? Try adding pastry scraps.

Ways to acquire cake scraps:

When trimming baked cakes, throw the scraps in a freezer bag, and freeze them. However, there are other ways to acquire them to create your version:

(Not that I practice any of these others – insert side eye):

• The next time everyone is too stuffed to eat that last piece of cake, wrap it up and freeze it.

• Snatch that last piece of cake off the buffet table wherever you are, wrap it up, and freeze it.

• Abscond with the leftover cake from restaurant meals and dinner parties.

However you acquire your cake scraps, they will be put to good use with this ice cream recipe. It’s like an afternoon coffee break wrapped in a scoop of ice cream.

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Coffee & Cake Ice Cream

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Prep Time 25 minutes

Cook Time 10 minutes

Chill Time 3 hours

Total Time 35 minutes

Servings 2 Pints

Author Lora Wiley-Lennartz

Ingredients

• 1 cup heavy cream
• 2 cups whole milk
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 2 tablespoons instant coffee powder
• 4 egg yolks
• 2 cups leftover cake scraps

Instructions

1. Heat milk, cream, sugar, and coffee powder in a saucepan until just about to boil.

2. Whisk egg yolks together in a heatproof bowl.

3. Slowly pour the cream mixture into the yolks whisking quickly to temper the eggs.

4. Scrape the tempered mixture back into the pan and reheat stirring occasionally until the mixture thickens a bit, coating the back of a wooden spoon.

5. Remove from heat and strain into a clean heatproof bowl.

6. Cover with plastic wrap, making sure the wrap touches the top of the mixture to prevent a skin from forming on top.

7. Refrigerate for at least 3 hours or overnight.

8. Transfer mixture to the bowl of an ice cream maker and follow manufacturer's directions to mix.

9. When ice cream reaches soft serve consistency, add in the cake scraps.

10. Transfer the ice cream to a container and place it in the freezer until it hardens.