Carnival cake

Carnival cake has all the best things piled into one heap and provides some cheap thrills.  True, it isn't quality food, but you can throw it together quickly, put whatever you want into it, pop it in the freezer and you're set.  Or better still, get the kids to do it all. 

Whenever you're at the supermarket, keep an eye out for cakes that have been marked down for quick sale, take them home and pop them in your freezer.  Pick up your favourite chocolate bars or cookies when they're on special and squirrel them away.  When the mood takes you, buy some ice-cream (we buy the sort that's divided into three flavours in the tub, so we can have differently coloured ice-cream layers) and stack away!

The one above was made in an 8 x 8 inch cake pan, but you can use any size or shape pan depending on how much cake and icecream you want to get rid of.   Spritz your pan with cooking spray and line it criss-crossedly with two or three layers of plastic wrap (you'll need to leave quite a bit of overhang to enclose your cake with once it's all together).  Then the fun starts!

The cake above starts out with sponge-cake on the bottom, followed by a layer of softened chocolate and vanilla ice-cream topped with chocolate cream biscuits.  (After the first layer of ice-cream, I like to wrap the cake up and put it in the freezer for half an hour to harden it up a bit.)   Next are rounds of chocolate swiss roll, top by some strawberry ripple ice-cream and then topped with slices of jam rollettes.  Wrap it all up in the plastic that you've left overhanging the edges of your pan, and leave it for a couple of hours to harden.   Once sliced, all those yummy layers look really pretty!

This is a really easy dessert to make for childrens' birthdays and lazy summer barbecue parties, and something the kids can have fun planning and putting together.  And when you're in one of those moods and you can't decide whether it's cake, cookies or ice-cream that will make things all better, this cake covers every option.  It's like a super-cake.  And, with so many possibilities, no two will ever be alike.  I'm liking the idea of Bounty bars and maraschino cherries for my next, after I've ploughed my way through the rest of this one.  Because an eight by eight inch slab of this cake takes some eating.  And so, therefore, like a carnival ride, make sure you share the experience amongst your friends and family, so you can all have fun feeling a bit peaky together.