Recipe Test: No-Bake Strawberry Icebox Cake

When the summer heats up, the last place you want to be is in a hot kitchen. For Father's Day, I tried this recipe from TheKitchn for a no-bake Strawberry Icebox Cake. The picture is what sold me, it looks so beautiful. Thankfully, the recipe was as easy (or easier) than the finished product was delicious. With the time and effort it would take to make a store-bought box cake you could have this home-made, grown-up strawberry shortcake.

For step-by-step photos of the recipe, see my Summer Strawberry No-Bake Icebox Cake Slideshow.

Recipe:

No-Bake Strawberry Icebox Cake From TheKitchn.com
serves 8

2 pounds fresh strawberries, washed
3 1/4 cups whipping cream, divided
1/3 cup confectioners sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon rosewater (optional)
4 sleeves (about 19 ounces, or 24 to 28 whole crackers) graham crackers
2 ounces dark chocolate, finely chopped

Take out a few of the best-looking strawberries and set them aside for the garnish. Hull the remainder of the strawberries and slice each berry into thin slices.

With a hand mixer or in the bowl of a stand mixer, whip 3 cups of cream until it just holds stiff peaks. Add the confectioners sugar, vanilla, and rosewater (if using) and whip to combine.

Spread a small spoonful of whipped cream on the bottom of a 9x13 inch baking pan, or a similarly-sized platter. Lay down six graham crackers. Lightly cover the top of the graham crackers with more whipped cream, and then a single layer of strawberries. Repeat three times, until you have four layers of graham crackers. Spread the last of the whipped cream over the top and swirl it lightly with a spoon. Add a few more strawberries.

To make the ganache, heat the cream until bubbles form around the edges, then pour over the chopped chocolate. Let it stand for a few minutes, then whisk until the mixture is thick and glossy. Drizzle this over the layered dessert with a spoon, or transfer to a squeeze bottle and use that to drizzle.

Refrigerate for at least four hours, or until the crackers have softened completely. Garnish with additional berries.

My Notes:

I used two pints of strawberries from the grocery store and had PLENTY of fruit for the cake. In fact, I had many more strawberries decorating the top of my cake than the original recipe showed.

Personally, I skipped the rose water, if you have it than I would say use it. If you don't have any rose water on-hand, I don't think the cake loses anything with its omission.

Whipping your own cream is a cinch, I've been doing it since I was a little girl. To ensure the cream is ready to go, make sure the peaks are stiff, meaning they don't slouch or tip over when you pull the beater out of the bowl. You don't want to over-whip either or you will end up with butter. It doesn't mention it in the recipe, but when making your own whipped cream, make sure to sifted the confectioners before folding it gently into the cream. The recipe says to "whip" it into the cream - if you do that you may over-whip your cream. Try folding any flavorings and sugar in with a spatula.

I was only able to put down four (4) graham crackers in my 9x13 baking pan. But, I still ended up with 8 servings of the cake. Maybe my graham crackers were just bigger than normal ones? I am not sure, this might be a typo on their part... but four full crackers did the trick for me. See the pictures here.

Spreading the whipped cream on the cracker was sort of a nuanced motion. I plopped three spoonfuls of whipped cream on the cracker-layer and then used an offset spatula (used for icing cakes) to smooth it over. Often, I needed to use my hands to stabilize the graham cracker tower so the edges would match up and the cake would look uniform.

The ganache was sort of a catastrophe. But it's cream and chocolate - so it wasn't actually that bad. I had four cups of whipping cream total and used three for the whipped cream... so when it came time to make ganache, I heated the remaining cup of cream. Failing to realize that I only needed a quarter cup of cream for my chocolate sauce. So my ganache was far less dark and glossy than the one on the picture. It was more like milk chocolate ganache. I also had a lot of ganache leftover. Which isn't a bad thing since I turned it into chocolate covered strawberries (link) and S'Mores with homemade marshmallows (link). I also read you can freeze leftover ganache quite well, so if you have extra and can't use it up right away, it is freezable. (link)

About the serving size: this no-bake Strawberry Icebox Cake serves exactly eight people, in fairly uniform slices. Do not try to squeeze extra servings out of it. Because of the shape of the graham crackers and their perforations, this cakes is very easy to cut into neat squares.

Taste Test:

I served this grown-up strawberry shortcake to my grandparents, parents and husband at Father's Day dinner. Since my dad loves all the ingredients, he loved the cake. My diabetic grandmother was happy since it's not an overly sweet dessert and she thought her blood sugar would be fine. My grandfather always, always, always eats ice cream for dessert - but since this cake is cold and creamy, even he went without his normal ice cream.

As for me, I would rate this no-bake Strawberry Icebox Cake Five-Stars for presentation and Three-Stars for taste. You can't go wrong with such simple ingredients, but I have a texture thing and I think the 'sell' from the recipe didn't translate for me. They claimed it would be light and eclair-like. That's big talk, I love eclairs. I found it a lot less eclair-like, more spongy and mushy. It had a surprisingly heavy mouth-feel. I did enjoy the light sweetness of this no-bake Strawberry Icebox Cake... where the fruit is the star instead of sugar and flour. It occurred to me you don't have to use strawberries for this cake. I think it could very easily be adapted to any seasonal fruit that you'd like to turn into a quick, easy dessert.