Ice Box Cake

More About This Recipe

• Intellectually, it takes a minute to process . . . Whipped cream and crunchy chocolate wafers magically transformed into a frosted layer cake? And this occurs without a working oven? Welcome to the perfect dessert for the dog days of summer entertaining, the Ice Box Cake! The assembly for this recipe differs from the ice box cakes I remember from growing up, which were were log shaped, such as this version. As the chocolate wafers are round, to make a log cake, you could either carve up the wafers or overlap long rows and then invert the stack of stacks on its side. I much prefer this new presentation – it’s a million times easier, looks like a traditional cake, and the chocolate curls dress it up! This version of the ice box cake is adapted from a Magnolia Bakery recipe and it is incredibly simple. Whip the creamy filling, then simply stack the cookies and whipped cream. Repeat until you have 11 layers of cookies and top with the remaining whipped cream. (Start to finish, prep is completed in less than 30 minutes! Yay!) Cover the cake and refrigerate for at least 5 hours, or ideally overnight. Not sure a dessert gets much easier than that! The only trick to this recipe is that the wafers themselves can sometimes be hard to find. However, even if your grocer doesn’t stock them, they are easy to order online (search for “Famous Chocolate Wafers”. I ordered a case –in anticipation that this cake will be my constant pot-luck companion over the summer!)