Ice Cream Sandwich Dessert

No one will believe this awesome dessert is just dressed-up ice cream sandwiches!

19 ice cream sandwiches
1 carton (12 ounces) frozen whipped topping, thawed.
1 jar (11.75 oz) hot fudge ice cream topping
1 cup salted peanuts (optional)

Cut one ice cream sandwish in half. Place one whole and one half sandwich along a short side of an ungreased 13"x9"x2" pan. Arrange eight sandwiches in opposite direction in the pan. Spread with half of the whipped topping. Spoon fudge topping by teaspoonsfulls on to whipped topping. , sprinkle with 1/2 cup peanuts, if desired. Repeat layers with remaining
ice cream sandwiches, toppings and peanuts.
(Pan will be full.) Cover and freeze up to 2 months.
Remove from the freezer 20 minutes before serving.
Cut into squares. Yield 12-15 servings.

(The recipe was clipped from a magazine.)

For Jay's party cake, I modified the above recipe a little. I used a Jello "No Bake" Oreo Dessert mix as the middle layer, and skipped the cool whip, fudge and peanut layer. The dessert mix has chocolate cookie crubs, and a whipped topping with crumbled oreos in it. Jay "piped" the whipped topping on the top, with a bit of fudge mixed in. I wasn't too pleased with how that came out. Perhaps real whipped cream, or a frosting, would have had more body that cool whip, which kind of lost its fluffiness in the piping process. But Jay was pleased with his efforts. We quickly popped it back in the freezer.. Later, I decorated the top with squeeze jel frosing. The ice cream bars come in a box of 36 at BJs, and probably other warehouse stores. I used a few more, cut lengthwise to solidly fill the pan on both layers. Jay isn't fond of peanuts in creamy desserts, so we skipped them.

I think I spent about $12 on the cake, not counting the jel
frosting which I had on hand. Stop and Shop sells an
1/8 sheet icecream cake for $20.
This was bigger, and probably better.