S’mores Ice Cream Cake (GF)

Fluffy marshmallow, smooth ice cream, salted graham crackers, and an ultra-rich chocolate cake

I am leaning into all the childhood summertime nostalgia with this recipe by making something that combines my two favorite summertime celebratory favorites: ice cream cake and s’mores. This cake not only made me emotional from the nostalgia, but also because it’s just that insanely good - it has an oh-so-smooth and fluffy dissolving marshmallow with it toasty burnt edges; cold, dense, and smooth ice cream (you pick the flavor); a soft and ultra-rich cake packing a chocolatey punch that reminds me of chocolate mousse; and a crumbly graham cracker crust adds perfect texture. This is one of the best recipes I have ever developed.

But don’t just believe me, resident recipe cross-tester Cara said:

“Feedback: this is the best dessert I’ve ever had. That’s all.“

Developing an ice cream cake has some additional challenges beyond those of a standard room-temperature cake (especially if you choose to put a baked cake inside it, like I did): 1. You need to keep the texture soft, even when frozen. 2. When items are frozen, the flavor becomes more subtle, so you need to make it super punchy 3. There are all the little things, like making sure the marshmallow maintains the right consistency, drawing out the graham cracker flavor even with all the other components, and figuring out the perfect ice cream flavor to tie it all together…

Making a soft freezer cake was the first challenge. I knew that because this cake was frozen, and cold desserts taste more faint on the tongue than room temperature ones, I would need to make an incredibly chocolatey and soft cake (it’s like a denser rich chocolate mousse). So, I turned to the chocolate-iest, softest cake I know: The River Café’s Nemesis cake. I took inspiration from this delicious cake, while shifting around the quantities so that it would remain lighter and therefore even softer when frozen (ice cream doesn’t eat like a popsicle because churning it incorporates air).

Marshmallows are a little on the chewy side, so this freezer-friendly marshmallow needed to be lightened up a bit with egg whites - making it somewhere between a standard marshmallow and fluff. What’s great about this marshmallow is it can be added right before serving or in advance (it is absolutely scrumptious either way). If you assemble the whole cake in advance, you get the benefit of just having to take the cake out of the freezer and torching it before serving. The resulting marshmallow is akin to one quickly torched in a campfire, with burnt outsides and a springy inside. Alternatively, if you have 15 minutes to spare before serving (and can deal with the noise of a stand mixer) you can make the marshmallow a la minute, for a super soft texture, reminiscent of a marshmallow that is patiently toasted on a campfire, soft and gooey throughout.

Easier components somehow provided their own challenges, although not technical, they were confounding on the decision-making side. The first hurdle was the graham cracker crust. I had played around with putting it between different layers because I think a ripple of graham cracker between the ice cream and marshmallow would have been beautiful, however, it always got lost, flavor-wise and texturally. To fit the ratios, it needed to be at the base so it’s the first thing that hits your tongue when you take a bite.

Then there was the ice cream decision. Possibly the most important and the most difficult. Vanilla or chocolate? I went back and forth and back and forth, trying both. Ultimately, Théo and I decided that while we preferred vanilla (the chocolate ice cream isn’t as rich as the cake) adding a whole other flavor is actually even more delicious. We absolutely loved the version of this cake topped with peanut butter ice cream (see the video below), but I'm guessing any nut ice cream would be delicious, or even coffee ice cream (which resident recipe cross-tester Cara tried and said it was “EXCELLENT!!!”)

As always, please read the recipe in full before embarking. This recipe does need to set up in the freezer overnight!

Ingredients