National Ice Cream Cake Day

National Ice Cream Cake Day is on June 27th in the United States.

An ice cream cake is pretty much what it sounds like; a cake made with ice cream. However, there are different types of ice cream cake. The most common variant sees the cake part baked as normal, cut to shape if needed, then frozen. The ice cream used is shaped if needed, and everything is assembled whilst frozen. Whipped cream is often used as a frosting; for one thing, other frostings will not stick successfully to the frozen parts.

The first ice cream cakes were made from biscuits and cream and in the Victorian era - the earliest recipes for ice cream cakes date back to the 1870s - bombes were made of ice cream and fruit in decorative moulds. These were sometimes lined with cake and biscuits. Today, the ice cream cake is a popular Fourth of July dessert in the US, and is often garnished with whipped cream, red berries and blueberries.

 Image: Debs (ò‿ó)♪, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

National Moonshine Day

National Moonshine Day is on June 3rd in the United States.

Moonshine is an alcoholic drink, usually a high proof distilled spirit, associated with the illegal production of alcohol, and with good reason. Moonshine was intended to be produced illicitly, without government authorisation, and therefore without paying tax on it. In most countries, it is still illegal to distil spirits in such a fashion, and moonshine made this way also tends to lack government interference from a safety point of view.

In modern times, though moonshine may, and is, still distilled illegally, there ae commercial products that are fully legal that are being sold as moonshine. Given that this is done legally, with all licenses and duties paid, it's technically not moonshine.

Image: Jane023, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons