Alternating Chocolate and Vanilla

1. Turn your freezer to its coldest setting. Place cartons of chocolate and vanilla ice cream along the freezer walls where the freezer is the coldest for several hours to make the ice cream as cold as possible. It takes roughly two half-gallon cartons of ice cream to cover a 9-by-13-inch cookie sheet or a 10-1/2-by-11-1/2-inch jelly roll pan with ice cream, but this ultimately depends on the thickness you choose for the ice cream cubes.

2. Place three metal cookie sheets or jelly roll pans in the freezer for at least 1 hour to chill. One cold pan will be for assembling the checkered flag, while the other two will be used as a work surface for the chocolate and vanilla ice cream. Place a long, serrated knife such as a bread knife in the freezer to chill the blade.

3. Remove the chocolate ice cream from the carton, leaving the ice cream in a solid block. Lay it on its side on one of the chilled baking pans. Cut the ice cream block into 1- to 2-inch thick slices, depending on the desired size of the checks in the flag.

4. Lay each slice flat on the baking pan and cut them into 1- to 2-inch wide strips, making each strip as wide as the ice cream slice thickness. Return the baking tray to the freezer for 30 minutes to 1 hour to harden if the ice cream melts too quickly while you work. It also helps to keep a cup of ice water near your work station so you can dip the knife to keep it cold. Wipe water off the knife blade before continuing to slice the ice cream.

5. Cut each strip of chocolate ice cream into 1- to 2-inch cubes. Place the tray in the freezer to keep the ice cream solid. Remove the vanilla ice cream carton from the freezer and cut it into cubes equivalent to the size of the chocolate ice cream cubes. Place the baking tray with vanilla ice cream in the freezer to keep it hard.

6. Push a cube of chocolate ice cream tight into the corner of the third chilled baking pan and butt a cube of vanilla ice cream tight against it. Alternate chocolate and vanilla cubes to complete the first row, continuing with additional rows until you fill in the baking pan entirely. Remove the chocolate and vanilla cubes from the freezer a little at a time so they don't melt as you assemble the flag. If the ice cream on the sheet begins to soften, place the baking tray in the freezer until the ice cream hardens before continuing with the flag design.

7. Place the completed tray of checkered ice cream in the freezer for several hours or until frozen solid as a single unit. Remove the tray from the the freezer and cut a wavy line along the top and bottom edges, if desired, to give it the look of a waving checkered flag.

Using Checkered Ice Cream

1. Place metal baking trays and a long knife in the freezer for about one hour to chill. Set the checkered ice cream cartons along the sidewalls of the freezer to make it as hard and cold as possible.

2. Remove the ice cream from the carton in one large block. Cut the ice cream block into slices, using the squares as a guide for slicing.

3. Place the first ice cream slice in the top, left-hand corner of the second chilled baking pan. Place the second ice cream slice directly beneath the first slice. If the pattern doesn't line up so the chocolate and vanilla alternate, cut out the first column of ice cream squares, shift the larger ice cream slice to the left, and place the strip on the right-hand side of the slice.

4. Continue arranging slices of ice cream on the baking sheet until the sheet is filled. Cut strips of ice cream as needed to keep the pattern consistent throughout. If the ice cream begins to melt, return the baking sheet to the freezer to harden.

5. Place the assembled ice cream checkered flag in the freezer for several hours or until the ice cream freezes back to a solid state. Any of the edges that melt slightly freeze together to make a single checkered flag sheet.

6. Cut a slight wavy pattern along the top and bottom edge of the checkered flag, if desired, to make the ice cream resemble a flag blowing in the wind.