I know the basics, but everything I'm finding online says to use cool whip for icing, doesn't sound very good to me. Can I use my regular buttercream on it? Any tips?

I don't see why not. I've never done an ice cream cake but I've frozen cakes w/a crumbcoat of BC and both the cake & frosting were fine.

Kristy

I would imagine that you could use buttercream, but keep in mind what icing tastes like when it is hard, if you have a recipey that works use it.

I think buttercream will work fine. The only suggestion I would make is to make sure to use cream or milk and not water to avoid having icy type crystals in your frosting.
If you are making something where chocolate will work, I've used the really thick fudge topping and just whipped it a bit without heating to write on ice cream cakes before.
Let us know how it works.

Buttercream works fine, but i prefer to use Rich's Bettercreme, you can add flavors to it also..

HTH

I use Wliton's crusting buttercream. I use water in it so I guess I'll have to try it with milk. I was worried that when I take the cake out of the freezer to serve it that the frosting would still be too frozen to eat.

Baskin Robbins' ice cream uses softened vanilla ice cream to frost their ice cream cakes.