Retro Recipe: Carnival Ice-Cream Cake

This cake, discovered in the 1975 iteration of Betty Crocker’s Recipe Card File, combines everything we love about summer desserts: juicy fruit, frosty ice cream and light-as-air angel food cake. Even better, it’s so fun to make. 

You start by tearing up an angel food cake, dividing the pieces among three bowls and tossing each one with different flavored powdered soft-drink mixes. (A perfect task for little helpers especially!) Then, in a lined tube pan, layer the sweetened cake pieces with partially thawed frozen fruit and softened ice cream, cover and pop it in the freezer overnight. (See recipe below for all the details!) 

As far as what fruit to use, the combinations are endless. The original recipe calls for peaches, raspberries and strawberries, but blueberries, blackberries, nectarines, cherries, mango or pineapple would work beautifully too. Craving more fruit flavor? Substitute your favorite fruit ice cream for the vanilla. Or go all in on one flavor! The resulting cake is spectacular when sliced, with flecks of fruit, cake and an abundance of ice cream. It’s a party on a plate!