no bake birthday cake

I have tell you why the girl who loves to make everything from scratch would even bother with something so simple.

This really is the easiest ice cream cake you will ever make!

This really should be named the I-just-moved-cake.

This came about as a result of my little girl's birthday falling just days after we moved cross country for a summer internship. Since it was just for the summer, we packed pretty much just our clothes -I had no kitchen to speak of. I even bought the plastic platter the cake sits on!

So you really can just run to the grocery store the day before, purchase all the components, assemble, and throw a cute little party the next day.

(Obviously, my little girl was obsessed with Dora the Explorer at the time.)

Oh, and the guests at the party - total strangers. Both cute little families from Church we had just met, one who was also there for a summer internship like Handyman. We still get together with them when we're in the same town! So fun to make friends everywhere you go!

Ingredients

• 19 ice cream sandwiches
• 1 carton (12 oz) Cool-Whip, thawed
• 1 jar (11 3/4 oz) hot fudge topping
• 1 cup salted peanuts (optional)

Directions

1. Cut one ice cream sandwich in half. Place one whole and one half sandwich along a short side of a 9x13 pan. Arrange eight sandwiches in opposite direction in the pan.
2. Spread the fudge topping on top of the ice cream sandwiches, sprinkle with 1/2 cup peanuts.
3. Spread half of whipped topping on top of sandwiches, fudge, and peanuts.
4. Layer again with remaining 9 and 1/2 ice cream sandwiches, then the remaining whipped topping and sprinkle with  the remaining peanuts.
5. Cover and freeze overnight, or at least 8 hours.

Makes 12-24 servings depending on size.

Serving Tip:
Remove from the freezer 20 minutes before serving.

PS: I know the photo is not great -this was taken pre-blogging and pre-nicer camera days. But this "recipe" is just to good and easy to not share! Enjoy!