How to Turn a Pint of Ice Cream into a Freakin' Loaf of Sweet Bread

Cooking may be an art, but baking is a science. It requires precise measurements since the outcome is based on chemical reactions. Using too much or too little of one ingredient can be the difference between perfect, crunchy-yet-chewy cookies and the dreaded "one big cookie."

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That's why frozen cookie dough and pre-made bread and cake mixes are so popular. They're easy to throw together, and pretty much guarantee success every time. But what if you're feeling so lazy that you don't even want to mess with a box of bread or cake mix?

Grab some ice cream.

With a pint of ice cream and some self-rising flour, you can make a super easy two-ingredient sweet bread (not to be confused with "sweetbread") in any flavor you want. It sounds too good to be true, but it works because ice cream contains most of the ingredients you need to make bread or cake anyway—eggs, sugar, and fat.

It's hard to tell where the idea actually came from, but there are plenty of people out there who've tried it to varying degrees of success. You can use any flavor of ice cream you want, but make sure to avoid reduced-fat versions.

To make the batter, just mix a pint (2 cups) of softened ice cream with 1½ cups of self-rising flour. If you only have all-purpose flour, the substitution is easy. Just add 2 teaspoons of baking powder and ½ teaspoon of salt before mixing it with the ice cream.

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Once you have your batter mixed up, pour it into a loaf pan and pop it in a 350-degree oven for about 45 minutes. You'll know it's done when it springs back when you touch it and a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.

If you want to make it more cakey, you can add 1/2 cup of sugar and any other add-ins you want, like nuts or chocolate chips. Or, why not go meta and make it out of cake batter ice cream?

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Get creative—the possibilities are endless, and a quick search brings up hundreds of ideas for inspiration. The hardest part is deciding what flavor to choose.

Photos by Vitamin-K, scoochmarooIn Katrina's Kitchen, The Hungry Housewife, ElinorD