A new take on cake and ice cream desserts

Surely I'm not the only person who has spent the past 20 years trying to recreate that one perfect ice cream moment from my youth.

Long before cake batter ice cream became commonplace, I found a tiny ice cream shop serving scoops of cake ice cream. As in, chunks of cake - fully baked and frosted - had been mixed into vanilla ice cream.

It was rich and sweet and creamy and cakey in ways cake batter ice cream can only dream of.

And I never found it again.

So I created my own version, which is easily made by mixing softened vanilla ice cream with purchased cakes. To keep the portions manageable, I used cupcakes, but larger sheet cakes would be fine if you're making ice cream for a crowd.

To highlight the frosted goodness of this treat, be sure to select cupcakes or cakes with brightly colored frosting.

While I was shopping for cupcakes, I noticed mini lemon meringue pies. So if you're shopping for cupcakes to chop up and mix into ice cream, it isn't much of a leap to consider doing the same with a lemon meringue pie.