To a sweet new year

This dessert is so easy that's almost embarrasing to accept any praise for it. But you will recieve lots of praise after people taste it, so I say to just enjoy! About a year ago Joe and I had dinner with our friends Lauren and Pat and Lauren served this brownie ice cream cake for dessert. Joe just about died from pleasure while eating it - it is so good! And once Lauren told me how simple it is, I started making it myself. Joe requested it for New Year's Eve and I happily obliged.

There's not real recipe - all you need is a gallon of your favorite ice cream and a batch of your favorite brownies. I always use a boxed mix for the brownies and Joe usually prefers neopolitan ice cream, but for New Year's Eve I used Turkey Hill Party Cake ice cream - vanilla ice cream with pieces of colored cake and buttercream frosting swirls in it. Festive! To assemble the cake, soften the ice cream a bit, then spread half the container in the bottom of a pan (I use a bundt pan). Crumble the brownies into bite-size pieces and layer half on top of the ice cream. Spread the remaining ice cream on top of the brownie layer in the pan and then crumble on the rest of the brownies. Freeze until the ice cream hardens.

We bought some Hershey's Magic Shell to drizzle (or, in Joe's case, glug) over our slices. Mmmmm - the perfect way to ring in the new year!