no churn ice cream

Before we dive in to today’s hot fudge sundae cake, I need your help. I’m reaching out to you, human to human, desperately in need of encouragement, advice, whatever you’ve got for me.

You see, I recently decided to branch out beyond my usual arsenal of dinner recipes. I had grown comfortable with simple dinners of a lean meat, vegetable, and starch, and wanted to start experimenting with new recipes and flavors. It seemed realistic to incorporate one new recipe into our weekly rituals, so I made that my goal and started cooking new things.

Unmet Expectations

Like most new ventures of my naive adulthood, I began this quest with grandiose expectations. I saw my family sitting around the dinner table, happily slurping bowls of Vietnemese pho. Aimee operates her chopsticks with age-defying precision and George requests extra pickled onions. No one picks through their food, complains, or asks “what’s for dessert” because they’re entirely enamored with their super-authentic, made-from-scratch meal. “And honey, is that a new dress? You look almost as ravishing as this bowl of noodles!”

There’s other nights too, ones where Brett suddenly develops a deep appreciation for mushrooms and we dive into hearty dishes like creamy polenta with braised beef cheek and chanterelles. Aimee and I pick herbs from our garden for spicy fish tacos and even spicier red curries, margaritas and mango lassies entirely optional.

In theory, it all works. I shop for groceries, sweat over the stove, and people enjoy the food. It should be a given, right?

Dinnertime Terror

Wrong. Instead, dinnertime is a personal beating, a full-blown assassination of this mother’s morale, as not one but three pairs of eyes stare at their dinner with disgust and despair. There’s no tofu meatloaf or fried frog legs on the table- just a simple meal of (what I wrongfully assumed to be) dinnertime basics- things like broccoli, chicken, and quinoa. You’d think I was serving a whole human head with a side of gun powder and hand grenades.

Brett pushes his food around and proceeds to ask 125 questions about the preparation of the ingredients on his plate. Aimee goes to time out twice during dinner and has to be hand-fed  broccoli florets in order for her to consume her second and third bites. The floor around George’s highchair is covered with food, a million little quinoa granules that someone (read: Mom) will have to clean up after suffering through this God-forsasken meal. What even is this?

So here I am, attempting to nourish my family with delicious and interesting food with absolutely zero luck. Everywhere in the media, writers and doctors and mommy bloggers go on and on about the importance of incorporating wholesome food and unique ingredients into everyday life.  Gweneth Paltrow write a 550 word think piece on the necessity of beet roots while Ina Garten laughs in the face of store-bought chicken stock, but I’m over here just trying to get my kids to eat anything besides yogurt-covered raisins.

Even my own mother, a saint in her own right, sends me a box of tools I need to prepare kefir water, because not only is it essential for gut health but what kind of mother would I be if my children drank filtered refrigerator water, and who cares that you’ve killed every house plant you’ve ever owned because feeding organic cane syrup to this jar of fermenting water is the only means by which your family will survive! I ask you, HOW I AM SUPPOSED TO KEEP ALL OF THESE THINGS ALIVE?!?

How Do We Do It?

So how do you do it, Moms? How do you feed your family well? And please don’t write to me about how simple your toddler’s vegan diet is or how you hand-mash your infant’s acorn squash that you grew in your 15-acre organic garden, because honestly, I might institutionalize myself. I want to hear it from the moms who have to will themselves not to order pizza every night. I want to learn from the moms who have to bootstrap it, night after night, just to encourage a diet from their family that expands beyond brown-and-serve sausage links and applesauce squeeze packs. What is our plan for feeding our family well when everyone at the table (self included) is crying? When hotdogs and Kraft singles seem like the easier path to follow?

Hot Fudge Sundae Cake

I need the opportunity to throw in the towel for a minute. Instead,  for now, I’ll make dessert. No one cries at the sight of a hot fudge sundae cake. Everyone wins when mom makes a dessert like this.

I came up with this cake last year for my mother. She’s a huge fan of Bruster’s hot fudge sundaes and that was the single request for her birthday. In fact, I made several personal phone calls to the kind people at our local Bruster’s because I just had to learn more about these illusive Dixie nuts that my mom wouldn’t stop talking about. I discovered that these ultra-desirable nuts were nothing more than finely chopped mixed nuts roasted with butter and a healthy helping of salt.

Sidenote: Call me a child, but listening to my mother rave about how much she loved these nuts was giving me all the Michael Scott “That’s What She Said” feels.  These are entirely inappropriate conversations to have with your parents and, okay, anyone over the age of 50. If your mother starts talking about Dixie nuts, do yourself a favor and just change the subject.

Making the Cake

To make this hot fudge sundae cake, you need a baked package of brownie mix. We all know boxed brownies are actually delicious, so just cut yourself some slack, okay?  The baked brownies are layered with a simple, no-churn vanilla ice cream, hot fudge sauce, and the infamous Dixie nuts. We coat the whole thing in an extra layer of the whipped ice cream, more fudge, and a few cherries on top because that what you do with ice cream sundaes, right?

The beauty of this cake is that you can make it as easy as you need it to be. I love this recipe for homemade hot fudge sauce, but if you desperately need to simplify, just buy it from the store. Don’t want to make the no-churn ice cream? Buy a half-gallon of the real deal in the freezer section and no one will ever know. This hot fudge sundae cake should make your life infinitely better, not harder, so if at any point you find yourself crying into a pan of Dixie nuts, just abort the plan and eat the brownies straight from the pan. You have my permission.

I’m not going to jabber on and on about this hot fudge sundae cake, because I know you already have one foot out the door on your way to get the ingredients. If you, like me, have had a time of it this past week, throw a bottle of wine in your cart and tell your family they can order carry-out. You’ve got a hot fudge sundae cake to make. For extra help on assembling multi-layer ice cream cakes like this, check out this post. Enjoy!

If you like this hot fudge sundae cake, you should check out:

Mint Brownie Ice Cream Cake

Peppermint Bark Icebox Cake

Confetti Ice Cream Cake

No-Churn Coffee Cookie Dough Ice Cream

Pretzel Shortbread Peanut Butter Brownies

No-Churn Mocha Brownie Fudge Ice Cream

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