10 Years of Blogging! + Salty Caramel Brownie Ice Cream Cake Recipe

I’ve been blogging for 10 years!

This blog started back in August of 2008 as a way for me to keep track of my marathon training and has evolved into many things over the last decade. Now I use this as a place to keep track of some of my favorite projects and to challenge myself to be creative.

I haven’t been writing lately because I’ve been behind the scenes cleaning up my 1500+ posts. I want to do a real redesign and overhaul of this blog but I want to make sure that the content I move over is worthwhile. This process has been tedious but fun. I discovered a lot of memories long forgotten that I posted about here.

Here are some of my favorite posts from the last 10 years.

• 2018: Concert List Archive (which I have since decided to keep updated and turn into a page)
• 2017: Barney’s Last Day
• 2016: Wedding Wednesday—Finally Photos
• 2016: Secret Spring Break (LA Field Study)
• 2015: Smashing, Pumpkin—or My Surreal Billy Corgan Experience
• 2015: Big Fat Makeup Post
• 2014: A Weekend, Sans Words
• 2014: Can’t vs. Don’t vs. Won’t
• 2013: Walk it Out Wednesday
• 2012: Three Years
• 2012: Dad + Running
• 2011: The Stuff So Nice We Moved It Twice
• 2010: Barney Gets a Bath
• 2010: Barney’s Des Moines Adventure
• 2009: I Flippin’ Won a Race Today!
• 2009: Near Life-Threatening Experience
• 2008: MARATHON!

Salty Caramel Fudge Brownie Ice Cream Cake Recipe

I made this masterpiece for Mark’s birthday this year.

The following is less of a recipe and more of a method since the cake was made from four recipes I found online and smushed together into this delicious cake form. I’ve listed the ingredients here for ease of grocery shopping should you decide to make this cake, but you’ll have to click through to get the directions from each recipe as I don’t like to re-publish others’ recipes here.

This is a LONG process, but it’s totally worth it! Alternatively, you could use pre-made ice cream and skip half of the steps and wait time. Just be sure to freeze solid between ice cream layers.

Ingredients

Ice Cream

Salty Caramel

• 2 cups whole milk
• 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon cornstarch
• 1 1/2 ounces (3 tablespoons) cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
• 1 1/4 cups heavy cream
• 2 tablespoons light corn syrup
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Vanilla Bean

• 2 cups whole milk
• 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon cornstarch
• 1 1/2 ounces cream cheese, softened (3 tablespoons)
• 1 1/4 cups heavy cream
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 tablespoons light corn syrup
• 1 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped
• 1/8 teaspoon kosher salt

Brownies

• 3/4 cup cocoa
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 2/3 cup butter, melted and divided
• 1/2 cup water boiling
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1-1/3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup chocolate chips

Topping

Salty Caramel Sauce

• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons heavy cream
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
• Flaky sea salt

Chocolate Shell

• Chocolate chips
• Coconut oil
• Pecans

Method

(Recipes Referenced)

• Jeni’s Salty Caramel Ice Cream
• Jeni’s Vanilla Bean Ice Cream
• Hershey’s Ultimate Chocolate Brownies
• Salty Caramel Sauce
• Chocolate Shell Ice Cream Topping

Directions

Brownie Bottom Layer

1. Prepare a 9″ spring form pan with parchment paper on the bottom and sides. (Here’s a great tutorial for covering the bottom.)
2. Mix brownies according to directions (or use your favorite brownie recipe instead). 
3. Pour about 1/3 of the brownie mix into the pan. (Feel free to bake the rest simultaneously in a different pan.)
4. Bake brownies at temperature according to brownie recipe, but only for 10-15 minutes. Check at 10 minutes to make sure that you don’t overbake. 
5. Let brownie cool completely and then cover with bees wrap or wrap of choice and put in the freezer for 2-4 hours or until frozen. (I waited a day before proceeding).

Vanilla Ice Cream Layer

1. Next, prepare Jeni’s Vanilla Bean ice cream recipe according to recipe directions.
2. Freeze according to your ice cream maker’s directions and pour on top of the frozen brownie in the spring form pan. 
3. Cover with bees wrap or other wrap of choice (do not use foil as it will rip and stick to your ice cream!).
4. Freeze solid for 4-6+ hours before proceeding to the next step. I had to wait 24 hours for my ice cream bowl to freeze completely before moving on to the next step.

Salty Caramel Ice Cream Layer

1. Next, prepare Jeni’s Salty Caremel ice cream recipe according to recipe directions.
2. Freeze according to your ice cream maker’s directions and pour on top of the vanilla ice cream layer in the spring form pan. 
3. Cover with bees wrap or other wrap of choice (do not use foil as it will rip and stick to your ice cream!).
4. Freeze solid for 4-6 hours before proceeding to the next step. You’ll want to make sure that your cake is SUPER frozen before removing from the spring form pan.

Removing Parchment and Preparing for Toppings

1. Place a plate or tray in the freezer. This will ensure that your ice cream won’t melt when you flip your cake out to remove the parchment. We had a melting issue.
2. When ready (you’ll have to act fast!), remove the plate and the cake from the freezer. 
3. Remove the collar from the spring form pan and flip cake upside down onto your frozen plate/tray. Working as quickly as possible, remove all parchment paper from cake. 
4. At this point, you might want to re-wrap with bees wrap to freeze solid and save the toppings step for right before you serve the cake. We added the caramel at this step but I would recommend waiting if you can. 
5. Cover cake completely either with a lid or bees wrap and return to freezer.

Topping and Serving

1. Make salted caramel sauce according to recipe and cool completely. 
2. Pour salted caramel sauce on the cake. Then return to freezer. You’ll need to use a cover instead of wrapping the cake at this point. Alternatively, you could skip this step and have people pour their own toppings on when you serve.
3. About 30 minutes before serving the cake, make the chocolate shell according to recipe. 
4. Remove cake from freezer and drizzle with chocolate shell and sprinkle with pecans.
5. Let sit until shell hardens.
6. Serve and enjoy!