With warmer weather on its way, it's good to have a simple and delicious no-bake dessert recipe that allows you to skip the oven, without scrimping on flavour. Alas, there is an indulgent cake that can be made without heating up the kitchen and uses another appliance instead - the refrigerator.
Icebox cakes have been around for close to one hundred years. Invented in the 1920s, companies would give out recipes to promote their new kitchen appliance - the electric icebox. Back then, the average home cook didn't have a huge refrigerator. Instead, they used an insulated box that held a block of ice that was delivered by truck.
The icebox cake became popular because achieving the desired cake-like consistency happened in this new appliance, and not the oven. Even when refrigerators replaced the iceboxes in kitchens, the name stuck with the light and creamy dessert, adding to its nostalgic charm.
The classic icebox cake is simply chocolate wafers layered with sweetened vanilla whipped cream. Nothing more and nothing less. Layered in a loaf pan, it was chilled and sliced, revealing a pretty patter of cookies and cream inside. Home cooks would experiment with other types of cookies, boxed pudding, sweetened condensed milk, and different flavours of whipped cream. The variations are endless, and after one bite it's easy to see why this cake remains so popular all these years later.
To celebrate summer and all of the gorgeous fruit that comes with it, I decided to create a blueberry lime icebox cake. It's a lovely combination of flavours, and just look at that presentation! Using graham crackers, a simple blueberry sauce, and sweetened limey whipped cream, this dessert takes just a handful of minutes to prepare. I love how the crackers are softened, but not soggy. They melt in your mouth, and you almost have to pinch yourself to check that you're not eating a traditional cake.