Icebox Cake Redux

Posted by - Dorrie

For a long time when I was a child my favorite birthday cake was an icebox cake that my mother would make with chocolate wafers and whipping cream. Using the whipping cream as glue between the wafers she would stand them up on their sides, form them into a loaf and then slather the whole thing with whipping cream and keep it in the refrigerator for 24 hours. By the time the birthday celebration rolled around the wafers were as soft as cake and so delicious!

Then a few weeks ago my mother called me all excited about an episode of The Barefoot Contessa that she had just watched. Apparently Ina Garten makes a delicious Mocha Icebox Cake, and uses a spring form pan - hooray! - no more delicate loaf making! Ina, who is not afraid of fat (yay!) also adds marscapone, kahlua, cocoa powder, etc. to her whipping cream - yum!

So when this month's Have the Cake challenge turned out to be Icebox Cake I jumped at the chance to make my own version of Ina Garten's icebox cake. As much as I love the sound of it, I skipped the marscapone, and because I was taking the cake to a dinner party with kids (including my own) I also skipped the espresso powder and kahlua.

My version goes like this:

In a stand mixer or with a hand mixer mix until it forms stiff peaks:

3 cups of heavy whipping cream

1/2 cup of sugar

2 Tablespoons of cocoa powder (I used the really nice Dutch stuff)

1 tsp vanilla extract

I lined the side of my spring form pan with butter and then parchment paper. On the bottom of the pan I made a layer of chocolate wafers (the Nabisco "Famous Chocolate Wafers"), filling in any holes between the round cookies with broken cookies. I then spread 1/5th of the whipping cream mixture on top and continued layering until there were 5 layers of cookies, each covered with whipping cream.

Layering the icebox cake

After the cake had spent 24 hours in the refrigerator I grated dark chocolate and white chocolate on top for a finishing touch. Here's the finished product, ready for devouring:

Finished cake

The cake was pretty on the outside and on the inside and tasted absolutely delicious:

Yummy!

We completely decimated the cake, several people going back for seconds (including myself). I love my new version of icebox cake and may never go back to the old loaf again. So delicious!