Ice Cream Cupcakes

For my grand and great-grandmothers birthdays we decided to make them a less-sugary, unconventional treat;  So we decided on Ice cream Cupcakes!

Ingredients:  

 1 container of strawberries

 1 tub vanilla ice cream

 1 box chocolate cake 

 1 box fancy cupcake holders

 1 bag cheap cupcake holders

 1 box strawberry JELL-O pudding mix

 1 tub strawberry cream cheese

1 individual size container strawberry yogurt

1 tub strawberry or original Cool Whip

 Ingredients on back of cake box

 Make cake batter according to package directions - stir until smooth

Scoop the batter into the cheap cup cake holders.

  

  You are making the top and bottom of the cupcakes.

                                                    

 

MMM! Yummy!

Bake Cupcakes according to the package directions and allow to cool.

While cupcakes are cooking - use a separate cupcake tin to make the ice cream molds.  We lined the tins with foil so the ice cream would be easy to remove.

We tried two different ways with the ice cream - 

1. Use an apple core-er and take the center of the cooled cucake out and then fill the hole with ice cream

 

  

This worked ok, but there wasn't much ice cream.  So, we thought about option 2 - a layer of ice cream

1st - cut the cup cake in half (like a layer cake) and put the (previously made and frozen) ice cream patty in the middle

Which ever way you decide to put the ice cream in works.  Then we made the icing!

This part was super yummy!

Mix together the yogurt, cool whip, cream cheese, and pudding mix.  Just for kicks we also added freshly chopped strawberries.

The strawberries helped enhance the flavor!

Then we put the icing on top in  large dollops

Just for fun, on some of these we also added sliced berries to the middle.

This one had the ice cream in the center  ;)

Now, I love DIY, and I love baking, but this WAS an experiment.

These tasted really yummy - when they were fresh.  After freezing for a few hours, we discovered the flaws.

1 - frozen strawberries are hard to eat

2 - frozen cake isn't very yummy

3 - the icing freezes

Now, the solution to the problem..... Well, we came up with 2 of them.

1.  Leave the ice cream out.  Now since this just isn't possible - THEY'RE ICE CREAM CUPCAKES! This was not going to happen.  This is a possibility if  we were going to take them to church and there was no way to freeze them, but otherwise, they have to have ice cream!

2.  Put the cupcakes together right before serving them.  Seems like a simple thing, why didn't we think of that before......