Ice Cream Pies

My favorite food is ice cream. I never turn down ice cream. Ever.

So, when I got back from a camping trip Sunday afternoon and realized that I needed to have a dessert ready for the 16 people showing up at my house the following evening, what did I do? I fell back to ice cream. I also was looking for an excuse to use my new chest freezer, and, while flipping through my Joy of Cooking cookbook (sidenote: this is NOT the most effective way to find a recipe, at all. Joy of Cooking isn't exactly very "browsable") I got the idea for an ice cream pie. I mean, why not? Ice cream is my favorite food, pie is my favorite thing to cook, and I now have room in a freezer to let the dessert freeze properly!

Because I didn't trust myself to make a good crumb crust- I've had mixed results- I went out and bought 2 crusts, a half-gallon of vanilla ice cream, peanuts, and caramel & fudge topping. I was ready for this experiment!

Chocolate Chip Ice Cream Pie
1 chocolate crumb pie crust (made from Oreos, or store-bought)
1/3 C chocolate chips
1/4 Gallon ice cream softened (I used vanilla, but cookies & cream or any chocolate/vanilla flavor would be good)
Fudge topping (NOT Hot Fudge topping.)

Spread chocolate chips on the bottom of the pie crust, reserving a few for garnish. Spread ice cream in the pie crust. Freeze until hardened (a couple hours). Spread fudge topping* on top of pie, garnish with remaining chocolate chips. Freeze until ready to serve. Refrigerate right before serving, for 30 minutes to an hour.

* If you heat the fudge topping before spreading it, it will melt the top layer of ice cream and will just slide around the top of the pie. The same thing will happen if you try to spread it on top of softened ice cream. I can speak from experience on both counts.

 Not to be outdone, I made a second pie, because just one ice cream pie was not going to stretch among the 12 or so people eating it.

Caramel Nut Ice Cream Pie
1 graham cracker pie crust (homemade or store-bought)
1/2 C crushed peanuts*
1/4 Gallon ice cream softened (I used vanilla)
Caramel topping


Spread nuts on the bottom of the pie crust, reserving a few for garnish. Spread ice cream in the pie crust. Freeze until hardened (a couple hours). Spread caramel topping (see note above). on top of pie, garnish with remaining nuts. Freeze until ready to serve. Refrigerate right before serving, for 30 minutes to an hour.


* Because it was less expensive, I bought a can of unsalted peanuts and ran them through a food processor till they were sufficiently pulverized

I got compliments on both of these, and just have one lone piece left in the freezer after the get-together. Alas, it is the Caramel Nut variety, and my husband is allergic to nuts...