Birthday Cake Ninja Creami Protein Ice Cream

Birthday Cake Ninja Creami Protein Ice Cream is the pint that tastes like the best part of the party, sweet cake batter ice cream loaded with rainbow sprinkles and spun thick and creamy. It is just milk, vanilla protein powder, Greek yogurt, sweetener, vanilla and almond extracts and salt, blended smooth, frozen solid and spun into festive scoops. A proper high protein dessert at the same time, with about 10 g of protein per serving from label values.

Why you’ll love it

• Tastes like real cake batter ice cream, not like a protein shake that got frozen.
• About 10 g of protein per serving from label values, about 39 g per pint.
• Five minutes of hands on work, then the freezer and the machine do the rest.
• Spins thick and scoopable, with one re spin fixing the crumbly first spin.
• The sprinkles stay bright because they go in after spinning, never before freezing.

Ingredient notes

Milk: whole milk gives the creamiest pint, and 2% is a close second. The milk adds about 10 g of protein per 1 1/4 cups from standard labels and keeps the base from freezing rock hard. Skim is the one version I would skip, since it made the test pint icy.

Protein powder: vanilla is the only right choice here, since it builds the cake batter flavor instead of fighting it. One scoop adds about 20 g of protein on most brand labels, but check yours, since scoops vary.

Almond extract: the birthday cake secret, and only 1/4 teaspoon of it. It turns vanilla into cake batter, but too much tastes medicinal, so measure carefully.

Greek yogurt: the quiet texture ingredient. It adds body and tang, about 6 g of protein per 1/4 cup from standard labels, and it is what keeps this pint thick instead of thin and icy.

Sweetener and salt: three tablespoons of sweetener is enough once the pint is frozen, and the small pinch of salt is what makes the cake flavor taste rounded instead of flat and sweet.

Rainbow sprinkles: two tablespoons added after spinning, so the colors stay bright and the pint looks like a party instead of a grey slush.

The freeze and spin rule that makes or breaks it

Two rules decide this pint, and both are about patience. First, freeze for a full 24 hours on a level surface, with the top smoothed flat. A pint frozen for only a few hours, or frozen at a slant, spins soft and uneven. Second, do not judge the first spin. Protein bases often look crumbly after the first cycle, and that crumbly look sends a lot of people to the conclusion that the recipe failed. It did not. One tablespoon of milk and one re spin turns it thick, creamy and scoopable. A second re spin takes it softer still, toward soft serve, so stop after the first re spin if you want proper scoops. The almond extract note matters here too: the birthday cake flavor only shines once the pint is fully spun and the sprinkles are mixed in, so taste before you serve and adjust nothing until then.

Variations

• Chocolate birthday cake: add 2 tablespoons of mini chocolate chips through the mix in cycle after the re spin. The chips stay chunky and shatter nicely against the cold cake batter.
• Funfetti cookie crumble: after the re spin, make a small well in the center with a spoon, add a handful of crushed vanilla sandwich cookies and run the mix in cycle for a cookies and cake style pint.
• Strawberry birthday cake: after spinning, fold in a spoonful of mashed fresh strawberries with a spoon, just twice, so the fruit ripples through instead of turning the whole pint pink.
• Peanut butter birthday cake: swirl a spoonful of peanut butter through the spun pint with a spoon before the sprinkles, for a bakery cake and frosting flavor combination.