Yangon Heat

Jello!

The title might be a little miss leading, but with all this hot-talk going on in the world I thought something cool, creamy and chocolatey would be the perfect break.

I present to you (drum roll please) The Banana Split Ice Cream Cake! It's got the whole shabang, moist chocolate cake, chocolate fudge, bananas, and cool ice cream to keep it all together.

So lets get jiggly with it. First off you need a really, really good chocolate cake for this. One that will stay moist after a day in the freezer and yet will hold together when you assemble the layers. I found one perfect for this cake (I'll post the recipe later, promise), and it's from Joanne Chang's Flour. Its chalk full of really great recipes, I really love it because there's a lotta detail in explaining the methods and stuff. :)

So alls you need when you have the perfect chocolate cake is:

• 2 large ripe bananas sliced
• Chocolate fudge (or ganache is fine)
• One tub of ice cream of any flavor
• And frosting.

+Heres what you need to do:

• Once the cake is cooled, slice the cake into 2 layers. 
• You want all the parts of the cake to be ready, so you can work fast before the ice cream melts!
• So line the spring form pan with parchment paper with a circle at the bottom and strips on the sides. Then put the top half of the cake and place it inside the pan with the cut side on the bottom.
• Then take a knife and cut the ice cream into slabs and place them on the first layer of cake in the pan, try to cover as much  as you can.
• Then spread bananas over the ice cream layer as evenly as possible.
• Pour and spread out chocolate fudge over the bananas, the place the bottom half of the cake with the bottom side up into the pan.
• Cover with plastic wrap and leave over night in the freezer. 
• After at least 4-6 hours, remove plastic wrap  and unlatch the spring from pan and start frosting (see notes)
• If the cake looks melty when you are working on it, just put it back in the freezer. Theres nothing to fear! 
• Then decorate with whatever you want! Crushed almonds, M&N's, mini marshmallows, you name it! 
• Return to freezer at least 2 hours before serving!

Layers top to bottom: Toppings/frosting
/cake/bananas/fudge/ice cream/cake.

+ Notes:

• Use a springform pan or the one with the removable bottom, or your cake won't come out! 
• I did this for a 9' cake, but adjustment are very easy to make. Just make the size that you want  and assemble with smaller portions of bananas, fudge and ice cream.
• I just used the simple chocolate frosting from my last post, cause I love the balance it brings to the sweetness with the pinch of salt. But any frosting is great with this cake.
• But frosting with a high butter content is not a good idea, because the cold might cause it to  crack when you cut into it.