Easy Ice Cream Pies

My very first for real job was at TCBY.  Remember TCBY?  I still crave White Chocolate Mousse yogurt every so often, and am willing to pay big money for it in an airport terminal (which is the only place they seem to have it these days).  TCBY's disappeared in the later 90's.  I miss them.  Anyway, my favorite part about working there, besides constantly sampling the yogurt when there was no one in the store (which was an awful lot during the month of January in Minnesota), was cutting peanut butter cups.  All the other toppings came already chopped, but not the peanut butter cups.  What's not to love about a job where you get paid to cut up peanut butter cups?  

Sorry about that trip down memory lane.  On to the topic at hand.  It was there that I learned to make ice cream pies and cakes.  And I still make them to this day.  They always get rave reviews.  And they are SO EASY, but there are a couple of little trade secrets.

This is the list of characters.  The great thing about this dessert is that you CANNOT ruin it!

Put some Oreos in a ziploc bag.  I used generic Oreos.  I don't think you can really tell the difference when it's just the crust.  A good rule of thumb is to use one sleeve of cookies per crust.

Use a rolling pin and crush them.  Then melt some butter in the microwave, I would guess about 2 tablespoons per crust.  Mix with the crushed cookies in a separate bowl.

Then press them at the bottom of a pie dish.  Put the crust in the freezer to harden while you do the rest.  This is very important.  If you don't do this, the crust will come undone when you try to spread the ice cream mixture in later.

Another important step.  Let the ice cream soften for about 30 minutes on the counter, put in your mixer for 5 minutes or so until it gets nice and smooth.  You could do this by hand if you don't have a mixer.  I've never tried it, but I'm sure it would be fine.

Mix until it looks like this.

Then cut up the candy bar of your choice.  This time, I used peanut butter cups and snickers.  It's just what I had on hand.  Thank you, Graham, for cutting up the chocolate bars.

Take the pie crust out of the freezer, and GENTLY smooth into the pan as to not disturb the crust.

Smooth out with a spatula to make pretty lines if you wish.  That's what the TCBY folks do.

Decorate with some extra chocolate if you have any left.  This was the peanut butter cup one.  All finished!

Then put in the freezer overnight.  The good and the bad about these pies is that they need to be made the day before.  So they are a good dessert to make ahead of time and not fuss about later.

Set out on the counter a couple of minutes before trying to cut.  Cut in slices, top with whipped cream if you so desire, and serve!

I think he liked his :)

Happy Birthday, Chris!