How to make an ice cream cake roll

Grandma Maxine’s husband, Grandpa Devar, loved ice cream.  Despite his being a staunch believer in keeping the Sabbath day holy, he was known to occasionally sneak to the grocery store on Sunday afternoons for a carton of ice cream after hearing that the grandkids were coming over.  Grandpa died at age 91. just six month ago and as far as we all can figure, the last thing that Grandpa ate before he died was a big bowl of ice cream.  Would Grandpa have liked this ice cream roll?  Definitely.

It has become a Father's Day tradition in our family to make a special cake for Brian every Father's Day.  This year I made him an ice cream cake roll.  Here's how I did it:

First, preheat the oven to 350 degrees and then mix up a cake mix according to package directions.  I used a German chocolate cake mix.
Grease a 15x10x1 jelly roll pan and cover with waxed or parchment paper.  I didn't have a jelly roll pan, so I used a cookie sheet that was 17x12x1, but it worked fine.

 Pour your batter into the pan.

 Tap the pan on your table or counter till the batter is spread evenly and the bigger air bubbles are gone.

Bake in a 350 degree oven for 10-12 minutes.  

Dust a nice clean dish towel with flower and turn the cake out on the towel.  Why does my cake have HUGE air bubbles?  Because I thought I would make the mix creamier by adding canned milk instead of water.  NEVER do that!  Canned milk foams up and thickens the batter and puffs up the cake and gives you big air bubbles you can't get rid of.  Anyway, back to the instructions.

Next, roll up the cake, dish towel and all.

\

After that, cool the cake completely.  

Next, put out your ice cream and let it thaw until it is just stirrable.

Now unroll your completely cooled cake.  You will see cracks, but you will not mind because mine was cracked, too, and I didn't mind and it turned out great.

Next, spread on the ice cream nice and evenly.

Then, roll it up, but don't include the dish towel this time.

Yes, there are cracks, but you will ignore them, right?

Wrap your cake with plastic wrap.  Mine looks like it tapers at one end in this photo, but it didn't; it looked great!

K, now freeze your cake till it's nice and frozen.  Overnight would be good.

Here it is.  So cute!  I frosted mine with German chocolate frosting.  Gnache would also be yummy.  You can serve it immediately, or freeze it unwrapped for about an hour until the frosting is hard and then wrap and freeze till you are ready to serve it.  Sorry I don't have a pict of the finished cake, we could not find the camera, besides, the boys frosted it so it wasn't all that.  But it tasted great and Brian absolutely loved it!