Easy Ice Cream Pretzel Cake

My beautiful friend, Tara, had a super size birthday this year.  She turned the big 4-0!  Her being one of my favorite people to talk too, I couldn't allow her birthday to go unnoticed, so I went in search for a decadent recipe, but I had a few prerequisites.

1st off; It had to have chocolate. She loves chocolate, it's her vice!
Then I thought it'd be cute if we stuck with our Tuesday night theme. Ice cream!

After hardly any searching, I found this recipe.

Are you drooling yet?  You should be! Oh.My.Gosh, it is SO good!

If you'd like to make this recipe as well;

You'll Need: 
3 cups crushed pretzels 
6 tablespoons cold butter, cubed 
3/4 cup hot fudge ice cream topping, warmed 
About 20-25 pieces of chocolate-covered miniature pretzels 
1/2 gallon vanilla ice cream, softened 
1/4 cup caramel ice cream topping (I maybe used 3 Tbsp)
Springform Pan



To start, place your ice cream container on the counter.  It will need to soften.

In the meantime, crush your pretzels.  You can easily do this in a food processor, but for those of you who don't have one handy, try this method.  All you need is a zippy bag, a rolling pin, and some arm muscle:

I've found that it works best to work in small batches, but once you're finished, you're pretzels should look something like this:

Sit 1 1/4c of the crushed pretzels in a bowl and sit aside.  The additional pretzels will be used later on. Next, dice up your butter into cubes.  It needs to be very cold, so try to work quickly.

 

Now add the cubed butter to your crushed pretzel bowl, and cut in the butter until crumbly. 

I just used a fork

Once the butter is well combined, transfer your mixture into a springform pan, and press firmly around the pan to make your crust. 

Place your pan in the freezer for at least 30 min's.

During freeze time, place your fudge into a microwave safe dish.  After the 30 min freeze time is up, nuke fudge for about 30 seconds, and spread over the top of the pretzel crust.

Spread all around, and re-freeze - Freeze time is up to you.  I left it in there about 15 min's

While your chocolate is freezing, transfer the entire carton of ice cream to a large bowl.

I did this part in sections to help me combine the two without making a disasterous mess.
I layered it 1 part ice cream, then 1 part crushed pretzels, 1 part ice cream, to remaining pretzels.

I also threw in a small handful of the chocolate covered pretzels since I had some left over.  
After everything is added to the bowl, stir to combine, and place over your chocolate crust.

Looks good already, right?

Then you won't mind when I say that the little one got a spoonful of the mixture...and Momma did too!  Oh-my...I could have ate a whole bowl of this stuff!! *Cheese* :) :) :)

After you've top your crust with the amazing ice cream mixture, cover and place your pan in the freezer overnight. It needs at least 12hrs. 

 By the way, I marked my pretzel bag while my cake froze overnight.    "Do Not Eat"

If your family/friends like to snack, like mine, I highly recommend doing this.  I caught a few friends going for our snack bowl, found these babies, and after reading the note, each one of them had a look of such disappointment. Haha - Oh the torture of it all! ;)


After the 12 hours, remove the cake from the freezer and take out of your springform pan.

 

To remove, just pull the lock in the opposite direction and it will cinch right open.

Transfer to a plate.  I used a regular ol' dinner plate, but hey...schmancey it up if you want!

Now it's time to drizzle on your caramel. I started by moving right to left making a straight line.

Okay...so not totally straight ;)

Now rotate your plate so that you can do the exact same thing again.

You're a quick one!  Yes, I rotated my plate :)

It's almost like you're making a super-sized tic-tac-toe board.

Now it's time to top your cake with some chocolatey embellishments. Notice how there are only 18 preztels and the recipes calls for 25?  That's my gift to you! 7 chocolately treats!  Hey...we all know you were going to sneak anyway! ;)

There you have it.  One Ice Cream Pretzel Cake... 

The birthday girl, and guests bragged about its beauty, multiple people asked for the recipe, and some even went as far to say that they thought it was from a bakery.  That made me smile, but above all...no one could believe how easy it was.  This is a must make!!