Funfetti Cake Batter Ice Cream

I have something of an obsession with cake batter, cookie dough and funfetti hence this dreamy Funfetti Cake Batter Ice Cream!

The first time I remember seeing a box of cake mix was back in the 80s. It was at the house of one of my Mother’s cousins. Her husband was in the army so they used to live in Malir Cantt. Going to their house was always a treat; I have not been to Malir in decades but I remember it being clean and non-congested with wide open spaces plus our hosts had a beautiful home and the glamorous lady of the house was a great cook.

One time at their home she was putting one of her lovely meals together and we were hanging out in her spacious kitchen as usual. On one of the open shelves built into the wall I remember a seeing a lone box of cake mix. The box was yellow and it was for a yellow cake mix. She had gotten it on a recent trip to London. It was like I could taste that yellow cake just looking at the box of cake mix.

The mind is a strange and beautiful thing. It always amazes me how sometimes you can remember ordinary things like a box of cake mix at somebody’s house from your childhood  with such vivid clarity and yet some recent apparently electrifying moments are all but a blur.

As a child I would lick the cake batter from the mixing spoons every time my Mother would bake a cake. To this day, I am more interested in the cake batter itself than in the actual baked cake! My Mother would scold me that I’d get sick or develop a tummy ache if I ate raw cake batter but I, like every good rebellious child, never listened. Thankfully I have never suffered any ill effects from raw cake batter so when I came across a few ideas for a Funfetti Cake Batter Ice Cream, it was like a dream come true and I was hooked.

My first encounter with sprinkles was in Daharki. They weren’t available in Pakistan back then and the folks who had them would get them on trips abroad. I remember seeing SuperCook (now Dr Oetker) ads in my Mother’s magazines advertising hundreds and thousands, food color and white icing in a tube. I tore out the page and sent it with my maternal Grandmother who was travelling to the US soon and asked her to bring this kind of cake icing and decorating stuff for me.

I discovered ice cream made with just cream and condensed milk in BBC Good Food Magazine back in 1994. It was a recipe in the kids’ cooking section of the magazine and since it was so easy and utterly delicious, it has since been my go to recipe for a quick and easy ice cream base. No ice crystals, no forking , no churning or ice cream machine required. It is a great base for this Funfetti Cake Batter Ice Cream and quite a few no-churn cake batter ice cream recipes use this base too.

I have always baked from scratch. For me, baking from scratch versus baking from a boxed cake mix can best be summed up like this: you know what they say about healthy eating that if you stay on track and eat whole, unprocessed nutritious food 80% of the time, you can afford to indulge in tasty but maybe not so healthy treats 20% of the time. That’s how I feel about boxed cake mixes – I will always bake from scratch but on the rare occasion that a boxed mix is required to add a certain flavor to something, then I don’t have a problem using a bit of it, like for this Funfetti Cake Batter Ice Cream.

A few things you might want to consider:

• If you absolutely do not want to use a boxed cake mix you can leave it out and add a few teaspoons of good vanilla essence or extract. The result will obviously not be Funfetti Cake Batter Ice Cream but you will still have a very delicious Vanilla Funfetti Ice Cream.
• If you can get hold of cake batter flavored bakery emulsion, that too can be used in place of the cake mix. I have not used bakery emulsions as yet but have read good things about them.
• Not all brands of sprinkles are the same. I would suggest not to use the local made sprinkle brands as the colors usually start to bleed shortly after contact with moisture – trust me as I speak from experience. I use Cake Mate brand sprinkles that I got from Esajee’s, (DHA, Lahore branch).
• If you want to make scoops out of the ice cream then freeze the mixture in a rectangle shaped airtight container to facilitate easy scooping.
• Since this ice cream is very creamy with zero ice crystals it melts fast (as can be seen in the photos!) so it is best to serve it in chilled bowls.

 

Funfetti Cake Batter Ice Cream

Recipe Type: Dessert    Author: Alice In Eatland

Prep Time: 10 Minutes + Freezing Time    Serves: 6-8

 

Looking for an easy, delicious & fun dessert? Made with just 3 ingredients, both kids & adults will love creamy no-churn Funfetti Cake Batter Ice Cream!

 

INGREDIENTS

• 2 cups heavy cream, well chilled
• 1 can (around 400 grams or so) sweetened condensed milk, well chilled
• 1/2  cup vanilla, yellow, white or Funfetti cake mix
• Sprinkles

 

METHOD

1. Whip cream until thick, fluffy and almost double in volume.
2. Add sweetened condensed milk and beat until thick and increased in volume.
3. Beat in cake mix. The mixture will thicken.
4. Taste and see if you like the flavor or if more cake mix is needed. The amount of cake mix called for in the recipe gives a nice but subtle cake batter flavor. Keep in mind that your ice cream mixture will get sweeter if more cake mix is added.
5. Turn mixture into plastic container, cover airtight and freeze 6-8 hours or until firm.
6. Scoop out into chilled bowls or into ice cream cones, sprinkle with sprinkles of choice and serve.