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My husband Jack and I started A Family Feast because of our love of food. We are enthusiastic about sharing great recipes that we’ve made ourselves so that you – our wonderful readers – can enjoy them too!
So every once in a while, we try a new recipe – like this one for Nutella Crunch Ice Cream Cake – that is so delicious and gets us so excited that we rearrange our calendar to share it here as soon as possible!
Three simple ingredients make up this Nutella crunch ice cream cake – Nutella, Rice Krispies cereal, and vanilla ice cream – all combined together into one fantastic, and super easy-to-make dessert! First Rice Krispies are coated with melted Nutella and then cooled before stirring into softened vanilla ice cream. The mixture is packed into a springform pan to form a cake, topped with some more of the coated cereal mixture, and then frozen until ready to serve. (Scroll below to see our video, showing you how easy it is to make this ice cream cake!)
Sounds so simple (it is) – and the results are so, so, so very, very good! The chocolate-hazelnut Nutella and the creamy vanilla ice cream are perfect together, and the crispy, rice cereal lends the perfect light texture to this cake.
This Nutella crunch ice cream cake is a great dessert for feeding a crowd when you want something really delicious without having to go through too much of a fuss to prepare it.
Our Nutella crunch ice cream cake was inspired by this recipe – which we originally spotted on Pinterest. The original version, using melted chocolate and peanut butter instead of the Nutella in our recipe, was cited as an award-winning recipe from the Utica Old-Fashioned Ice Cream Festival, and I can totally understand why! In fact, if you are near Utica, Ohio – the 2013 festival is this coming weekend!
We hope you enjoy this recipe as much as we did! (P.S. Check out our other version of his fantastic dessert using Biscoff!)
We love seeing what you made! Tag us on Instagram at @afamilyfeast or hashtag #afamilyfeast so we can see your creations!
Nutella Crunch Ice Cream Cake
Ingredients
- 2 cups Nutella
- 6 cups Rice Krispies cereal
- 1 gallon vanilla ice cream
Instructions
- Place a 9 or 10 inch springform pan, as well as a very large mixing bowl in the freezer to chill.
- In a large saucepan over low heat, combine the Nutella and Rice Krispies cereal. Mix well until the Rice Krispies are completely coated with the Nutella. Remove from heat.
- Line a sheet pan or cookie sheet with parchment or wax paper. Pour the Nutella-Rice Krispies mixture onto the lined sheet pan and spread evenly. Then place in the freezer to chill.
- While the coated cereal mixture is cooling, remove the ice cream from the freezer and place in the refrigerator to soften.
- After about 30-45 minutes (you want the Nutella coated cereal to be cooled and firm but not frozen at this point) – using a fork and knife – cut the coated cereal into bite sized pieces. Place back into the freezer, if necessary, until the ice cream is softened.
- Once your ice cream is softened (it should be just softened enough to stir in the coated cereal but not so melted that it is runny), remove the Nutella-cereal pieces, the large mixing bowl and the springform pan from the freezer.
- Reserve 2 cups of the Nutella-cereal mixture.
- Quickly combine the ice cream and remaining coated cereal in the chilled mixing bowl, then pour the mixture into the chilled springform pan, packing it firmly so that there are no air pockets. Top the cake with the reserved Nutella-cereal mixture.
- Cover with plastic wrap and place the springform pan back into the freezer for at least 4-6 hours or overnight until completely frozen.
- Remove the cake from the freezer about 30-45 minutes before serving and place in the refrigerator to soften a bit.
- When ready to serve, place the cake on a platter or cake stand and remove the sides of the springform pan. Cut and serve immediately.
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I think adding 2 tablespoons of honey will give it a brightness . great idea and great recipe
You can certainly try that – although it’s fairly sweet as it is!
This was quite amazing – thanks for the recipe. Will be a staple from now on. See here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hildigunnur/9448328797/in/set-72157634956102018/#
Thank you! Your version looks great!
This recipe looks like something I want to do for all family birthday cake. I have one question. Is it hard to take the cake out of the mold? Are there any tricks or advice on this? What kind of material work for the mold?Thanks.
Hi Carolyn – It’s made in a springform pan so I’d suggest letting it defrost a little bit before you loosen the sides of the pan – and it should easily open up and slip right up! (The bottom of the pan stays under the ice cream and you’d cut the slices down to that pan bottom.) Hope that helps! Thanks for visiting today!
I just wrapped up the cake to chill overnight in the freezer to eat for my son’s 6th birthday tomorrow. Just from licking the spoon I know how delicious it will be! Looking at the pan, I was very skeptical about fitting a whole gallon of ice cream plus all the nutella crispies, but it actually did fit! I didn’t have a big enough mixing bowl so I mixed half the crispies with one container of ice cream, filled the pan and put it in the freezer while I mixed the other half. We are all looking forward to eating it tomorrow…thanks for sharing it!
I hope you all enjoy it Lauren! (It does look like all that ice cream won’t fit-but it does!!). Thanks for visiting our site!
You had me at 3 ingredients, and because one of them is Nutella, you had me all over again. Can’t wait to try this — it looks divine!
Thank you!
When I saw this I immediately saw a potential variation. If you use a deep dish pie pan and put a an Oreo crust in it and make it the same as you do the cake. Fill it up with the ice cream, top with the crunch and perhaps add layer of whipped cream on top of that. My niece is in school to become a professional baker and I’m going to share your recipe with her. I think I’ll get the ingredients and see how they both come out.
Sounds like a great variation!
Hi Martha,
I am always looking for recipes that I can tweak and make gluten. free. This is such a simple tweak since there are gluten free rice krispies. My husband loves ice cream cakes but I can never have one because of the gluten issue. Thanks so much for sharing!
Great idea Debbie! Thanks for visiting our site!
Hi,
I didn’t understand why we leave 2 cups of the same mixture of nutella , rice crispies and ice cream and put on the top. Is there in difference from the other mixture?
Thanks,
Maria
Hi Maria – The mixture you leave out is for the topping – but if you’d prefer to just mix it all in with the ice cream and not have a layer on top, it will taste just as good! Thanks for visiting our site!
Woah. This is such a amazing idea.
Thanks Aiza!
would love to try this with coffee ice-cream ! Thanks for the recipe : )
What a great idea Deborah! I’d go for that too! Martha