These ice cream sandwiches are inspired by the ones from Disney’s Animal Kingdom. I saw a couple videos about them and they sounded amazing! Since I can’t just go to Animal Kingdom to try them, I decided to make a version at home. I haven’t tried the original one and am not sure of its exact flavor, so it’d be hard to call these a copycat. However, I watched and read a lot of what has been said about them and feel like I am at least very close. If nothing else, it’s a fun version to try at home. And if you’ve never heard of them, just make them because they are awesome!

Testing, Testing!

I spent a good bit of time testing the brownie and cookie dough layers. I wanted the ice cream sandwich to have a good bite and not have one layer significantly firmer than the other. The trickiest layer was the cookie dough. Cookie dough is dense and made with butter, and both factors make for a very firm layer when frozen. So, I started with reducing the butter and replacing it with oil. The butter/oil combination gives both the flavor from butter and a softer texture when frozen from the oil.

Another thing I added was some corn syrup, similar to adding corn syrup to the fudge layer of my Copycat Dairy Queen Ice Cream Cake. Corn syrup doesn’t fully freeze, so it helps things stay soft in the freezer. That was the final secret to nailing the texture, I think, because the cookie dough came out perfectly!

As for the brownie layer, I tested out my classic easy brownie recipe (oil-based) and my newest fudgy brownie recipe (butter-based), but without the chocolate chips. The brownie layer was naturally softer when frozen than the cookie dough with both versions. I ultimately decided to go withe the fudgy brownie recipe. It’s still soft when frozen, but also holds up a little better to the ice cream and cookie dough layers to meet their firmness. I’m so in love with the final version of these – firm enough to slice and hold the ice cream, soft enough to bite into straight from the freezer.

The idea for this banana pudding pie came about while testing some updates to my banana cream pie. I tested that filling with a few different milk combinations, including some sweetened condensed milk. I loved the version of the filling with sweetened condensed milk, but in trying to stick with a more traditional filling for that pie, I decided not to use that version for that pie.

However, it was too good not to use it for something! I really love banana pudding that is made with sweetened condensed milk, so it seemed natural to bring that filling into a banana pudding pie layered with banana slices and Nilla wafers. It was an amazing decision because this pie turned out even better than I imagined, and it is so good!

As much as I love my other banana pudding-inspired desserts, like banana pudding poke cake, I am kind of obsessed with this pie. It’s just so darn good! If you love banana pudding as much as me, this pie will be your jam.

You guys know that I love a good cheesecake and when we get out to eat, I always have to try the cheesecake if it’s on the menu. Which is how I first ended up trying this red velvet cheesecake cake, one of the popular options at The Cheesecake Factory. It combines two of my favorite things – red velvet cake and vanilla cheesecake. I actually already have a red velvet cheesecake recipe but I love that this one has the actual cake layers along with the cheesecake too.

This isn’t the first time I’ve recreated a dessert from The Cheesecake Factory. I have several other cheesecakes inspired by theirs, including the Banana Cream Cheesecake (my all-time fave), Oreo Dream Extreme Cheesecake, Mango Key Lime Cheesecake and Kahlua Coffee Brownie Cheesecake. If you love red velvet, though, this red velvet cheesecake cake will be your favorite.