It is totally possible that this is the most random Our Best Bites post ever. We often get requests for how to make those crunchy things that are inside Carvel and Dairy Queen and other ice cream cakes, so I used my awesome stalker research skills to find out how they’re made. I also had this little awesome tip on how to make your own chocolate shell at home. Suddenly, I had these two seemingly unrelated mini recipes that are so simple that it was kind of weird to post them on their own, but they were things I really wanted to share with y’all. And since they really are related, I combined them. I’m living on the edge here. With Oreos and Magic Shell.
Because those are the only two ingredients in the Crunchies.
Except that in all my stalking research, all the measurements were these vague ideas like, “Cut up some Oreos and pour enough Magic Shell over them so they’re moist but not soaked.” Um, huh? That does me no good. So I started playing around with proportions until it felt right. Except that I measured all along the way so I could give you guys measurements because I love you that much.
You know how those standard-sized packages of Oreos have 3 rows in them? Place two of those rows in a food processor.
The rest of the Oreos left in the package will be sad that their friends are gone and when cookies are sad, they become devoid of calories. Just sayin’.
If you don’t have a food processor, you can place them in a heavy-duty Ziploc bag and then crush them with a rolling pin. Or take out all your aggression with a meat mallet. It works, I promise. Either way, you’ll want to crush them so they’re mostly crumbs, but it’s cool if there are a few chunks in there. And you’ll want 2 1/2 cups of crumbs.
Pour a 7.25-ounce bottle of Magic Shell over the cookie crumbs.
Mix it up well.
Spread it between layers in ice cream cakes (or similar desserts like these Mint-Chip Ice Cream Brownie Squares) or hand-mix them into softened ice cream, press them into ice cream bowls or ramekins before adding ice cream sundae toppings, or sprinkle them on top of your favorite frozen treats.
But alas, you say, I do not have/like/want to use Magic Shell. No worries. All you need is a little chocolate and some coconut oil.
There are a lot of cool things about coconut oil (and lots of great health benefits in spite of the fact that it’s high in saturated fat), and one of those things is that it’s solid at room temperature, so it’s good at helping melty things like chocolate stay firm at room temperature and hard and crunchy at lower temperatures.
Anyway.
Chop up some high-quality chocolate and combine them in a microwave-safe bowl with the coconut oil.
You can also use chocolate chips…I actually planned on using chocolate chips, but I couldn’t find them and assumed SOMEONE had snacked them away until I found them in an empty box of cereal a week later. My life is complicated.
Heat the chocolate and coconut oil in the microwave for 20 seconds at a time, stirring every 20 seconds, until the mixture is smooth. Drizzle it over ice cream…
or dip your favorite cold treats into the sauce. Or mix it with crushed Oreos to make your homemade Carvel Crunchies (and we come full circle…DUM DUM DUM!) Just don’t forget to lick the spoon because that is the very best part.
We’ve had a few questions about different flavors and colors of Homemade Magic Shell. It’s TOTALLY do-able, but be sure any flavors or colors you add don’t have any alcohol in them; otherwise, it will cause the chocolate to seize up and clump and that is not magical in any way. Wilton has some good basic flavors–you can look for them in a store like Hobby Lobby or Michael’s or buy them online here or here. Gel/paste food colorings (like Wilton or Americolor) are also alcohol-free, so if you want to use those to tint white chocolate, they should be fine.
Homemade Ice Cream Cake Crunchies
Ingredients:
2/3 standard package of Oreo cookies (or 2 1/2 cups Oreo cookie crumbs)
1 7.25-ounce bottle Magic Shell ice cream topping (or almost 1 cup of homemade Magic Shell, recipe below)
Instructions:
Crush the Oreos so you get 2 1/2 cups Oreo crumbs. Pour the Magic Shell topping over the cookie crumbs and mix well to combine. Use as an ice cream topping or the filling for ice cream cakes or pies.
Homemade Magic Shell
Ingredients:
8 ounces high-quality chocolate
2 tablespoons coconut oil
Instructions:
Combine chocolate and coconut oil in a microwave-safe bowl. Heat in the microwave in 20 second increments, stirring every 20 seconds, until smooth. Drizzle over ice cream, dip frozen/cold treats in the chocolate, or use in the Homemade Ice Cream Cake Crunchy recipe.
Questions & Reviews
For chocolate mint, you can get oil of peppermint or wintergreen. Wilton sells a pack of four different oils, which includes 2 different mints, I think and a cherry or strawberry.
For flavoring chocolate and barks, always use oils, not extracts. Extracts have water in them. That is what makes the chocolate seize. The paste or gel food colors work to color them also. Don’t use liquid food colors. This idea sounds great !
YUMM! This looks amazing! Have to try it and post about it over at my blog! Thanks!
Rockin’ my world as always! AND I just got your cookbook for my birthday. So, total win for me, and major brownie points for the hubby who got it for me.
I made the mint chip ice cream brownies yesterday with the crunchies in place of the Oreos. So, so good! The only problem is with the magic shell in there, it made it slightly hard to cut. The ice cream and cool whip were getting really soft and runny and it was still a little bit difficult to cut through the magic shell layer. So, if you are going to put the crunchies in the brownies, make sure you are among close friends and presentation is not important. : )
Thanks so much for posting these recipes!!! I had no idea you could make your own hard shell chocolate sauce. How cool! Can’t wait to try these! 🙂
We used this recipe as a jumping off point for our own ice cream cake yesterday and it was too good not to share! My mom had the great idea to use the ‘leftover’ row of oreos as a crust: smash them, mix with 1/4 cup melted butter and 2 tsp sugar. Spread in the bottom of a 9 inch springform pan and bake for about 10 minutes. Freeze.
Then we left a container of vanilla ice cream out to soften while we made the crunchies. Spread half the carton of ice cream over the cooled crust, add about 3/4 of the crunchies, pour over a thick layer of hot fudge, then top with the rest of the ice cream. Garnish with the rest of the crunchies, drizzle more hot fudge AND freeze.
The springform pan was great: run a knife around the edge when frozen, remove the ring, then run a large knife under hot water, dry and use it to easily slice up portions.
We’re already trying to think of variations!
Darn! I was going to make homemade Magic Shell this week and post the recipe on my blog. Ya beat me to it 🙂 The crunchies look great!!
Yummy! I don’t comment much, but I love your site, recipes, and how down to earth you and Sarah are! You are my go to site for everything! I hope you don’t think I am a freak, but would you be willing to share an address that I could send you a baby gift?
So sorry I spelled Sara wrong!
Can you use the crunchies in a regular cake or just icecream cake
Sure! You might want to pop it in the fridge, though.
I made this yesterday and it was so easy and delicious! Perfect timing because my mom’s favorite is magic shell- so I gave it to her in a small mason jar with a small ice cream as a thank- you. She loved it! I was wondering if you have used coconut oil in any baked goods and if so would you substitute it for the oil, shortening or butter in the recipe? How would it change the flavor?
PS- thanks for teaching me how to cook!
Coconut oil in baked goods leaks out onto the oven floor. My experience with pie crust, that is.
I am a new follower of your site and I am loving the variety and great ideas and dedication you ladies put into this. Thanks for your hard work!
Yum and yum! Thank you!
The rest of the cookies will get lonely and sad. LOL! You crack me up, Kate!
I used to be obsessed with Mint Magic Shell, and then they stopped making it (way back in the dark ages….the 1980s…), so I used to add mint extract to regular Magic Shell – but I’ll bet that has alcohol in it so would make the homemade stuff seize up. But gosh, there is NOTHING better than a bowl of stirred-up vanilla ice cream (not soft serve to begin with – it has to be the regular stuff), coated with an even thick layer of mint magic shell, which you then break up and stir back into the ice cream. This recipe just jerked me right back to the carefree days when I could eat all of this joy in a bowl and not feel guilty about going back for seconds! Ahhh….youth…Can’t wait to make both the crunchies (which I MIGHT try to ‘mint up’ a bit with either mint oreos if they still make them or the extract) and the chocolate sauce.
I love your obsession with mint!! Why don’t you try to make some Magic Shell using mint chips and then mix it with mint oreos?? Good luck. Please let us mint lovers know how it turns out.
I tried to read through all comments and I didn’t see that oreos mixed in with FUDGE SAUCE also works. I’ve made an ice cream cake using this and got tons of compliments! I’ve never heard of the magic shell way, though I’m not a big fan of the stuff anyway. I don’t like that it gets hard when it touches cold stuff.
Any kind of oil will work to make magic shell, not just coconut oil. I used canola oil last week because that’s what I had on hand, and it worked great. Also, for those who are wanting to make cherry hard shell, why not try cherry chips? I saw them in my grocery store this week with the other chocolate chips. I can’t remember the brand name, but they are reddish pink (same color as the DQ topping) and shaped like chocolate chips.
Oooh!!! That’s brilliant. I’ve never seen them, but I’ll go look for it right now.
Is it possible to store the crunchies for future use, or do they need to be used right away? Not sure how much the Oreos would soak up the magic shell and if that would affect texture or something . . . ??
My guess is yes, although I’m not sure for how long. Maybe keep it refrigerated and then bring it back to room temp before using? Sometimes I wish Alton Brown or America’s Test Kitchen lived at my house so they could solve all these problems for me. Except that Alton Brown kind of scares me sometimes… 🙂
I worked at DQ for 3 years and we just stored the cake crunch in an airtight container on the shelf. We went through it pretty fast, so I don’t know a shelf life, but if you make a small batch it’d probably be just right for a cake or two!
Can you use the regular Wilton colors? Or do you have to use the candy colors? I tried using the regular colors with the Wilton candy melts and they seized and clumped the candy. The Wilton candy food colors worked great though.
I’d be safe and go with the candy food colors.
You are officially my hero!
Yum! I’m way too much of a cheapskate to buy an ice cream cake, so now I can make my own! Thanks. 🙂
I have made this several times. I tried it with butterscotch chips and it worked great! I’ve also heard you can do it with peanut butter chips, but alas, my son is allergic, so we sadly will not be trying that one. Cinnamon chips would probably be really good–especially on something like your snickerdoodle ice cream!
This looks really good! Where would I find coconut oil? I live in Salt Lake and haven’t seen it. Does it add flavor? Would shortening work as well if I can’t find it?
You should be able to find it anywhere, just with the other baking ingredients/oils. If you’re in SLC, go check out Whole Foods (although I’m able to find it at Walmart in rural Louisiana, so I’m betting it’s in SLC, too! 🙂 )
Shortening won’t get the chocolate as hard.
I was just in Walmart yesterday and saw coconut oil in the baking aisle. It was the same brand in the pic so no need to hunt our a store.
You can buy coconut oil online from coconutreat.com or Honeyville Grains in Utah sells this brand as well. =0)
Look in your organic asile…you will be sure to see it there with the natural oils!!
The crunchies in Carvel cakes are made from the cookies used in their Flying Saucer ice cream sandwiches. There is no other ingredient.
i work at a Dairy Queen and that’s all ours is too…
Actually I worked at a Carvel for a couple of years and they taught us to make them with the cookie crumbs, as you mentioned, but stirring them well WITH a can of the chocolate coating we dipped soft serve ice cream in- just like the Magic Shell.
Curious to know if you can keep the homemade magic shell in the cabinet just like Smuckers brand MagicShell or if it would have to be refrigerated to stay “good”. Any thoughts? Thank you times a MILLON for this recipe by the way. My husband will be a very happy guy tonight! 🙂
Yep–since both products are shelf-stable, it’ll do fine outside the fridge. 🙂
This is great! I have tried to make ice cream cakes at home with just the oreos crushed up. Ah – haaaah. The magic shell! I’m thinking bottom of a spring form pan, top with ice cream. more cruhchies, more ice cream. some kind of frosting. just like the real thing. THANK YOU!
LOL! I have to do the same thing with chocolate chips. I’ll buy a bunch of packages when they go on sale, but when I get the urge to bake cookies they’ll be gone due to husband pilfering if I just put them in the cupboard. So they’ll go inside an old oatmeal container, in the laundry closet, a drawer of my craft room, etc. Only I’ve tended to forget where I hide them… What we won’t do for Chocolate Chip Cookies.
YUM!
Maybe this is a stupid question but we are a small family and are sure to have leftovers…what would you store the extra chocolate magic shell in? I have s smucker’s bottle that is almost empty so maybe i’ll hold on to that 🙂 Any other recommendations? Peppermint is also one of my favorite flavors from Article Circle (would be a great idea for the holidays…i’m just saying) Do you think white chocolate, some peppermint flavoring and some red food coloring would still work? I’m sure you could so the same for cherry?
You could use an empty bottle or just an air-tight container. 🙂
As far as flavoring goes, you can definitely do that (colors, too), BUT. You need to make sure the flavorings and colors don’t have alcohol in them or they’ll make the chocolate seize up and clump.
Try the Wilton alcohol-free flavors:
http://www.wilton.com/store/site/product.cfm?id=3E3103E7-475A-BAC0-56CDA3C3D9B7A669
And you can use their gel/paste colors, too; just keep in mind that they’re WAY more concentrated than regular food coloring.
To make a flavored hard shell, such as cherry, do you use white chocolate instead of milk chocolate and add the cherry flavoring to it, or…? I’m sorry, but I’m a complete dunce at what is the correct thing to do.
Laura B there is no right/wrong way. Milk chocolate and cherry would be as good, but more chocolatey than white chocolate with cherry. You’re not a dunce, I’m sure.
Oh my goodness!! What fun recipes!! And on my birthday, to boot!! 🙂 I think we’ll have to try them!! Thanks! 🙂
Oh, this reminds me… Do you have a version for a cherry hard shell? My husband ADORES the hard shell from Dairy Queen, but I have never been able to find one in the stores to buy. You would make me an absolute hero!
Check out my response on Comment #3. 🙂