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Strawberry cream icebox cake is a great summer treat, but you’ll serve it year round.
Strawberry Cream Icebox Cake
There’s nothing new under the sun and this is one of those recipes.
I’ve seen this around for years and even made one iteration as a teenager–and that’s a long time ago. But since I love strawberries and cream so much, I decided to do it again. This time with a little upgrade for flavor.
Admittedly, I haven’t thought about this dessert for years until I saw a version of it on Cooking With Mary and Friends. This is very delicious the way she made it, but I made a more natural substitution which I feel makes it taste even better.
A Better Substitution
Even though I’m all about convenience when it comes to making something quicker, here’s one place I’ll take the time to make what I need.
I like whipped topping. In fact, I use it in many desserts such as this Biscoff eclair dessert. But with fruit I like to go all natural so I make my own whipped cream.
In this recipe, the whipped cream doesn’t have to be stabilized since it’s mixed with cream cheese. Adding cream cheese to heavy cream is one method to stabilize it so that problem is solved.
A 8 ounce tub of whipped topping is 3 cups so you will use 12 ounces of heavy cream in this. Of course if you’re in a hurry, by all means use the whipped topping.
Other Fruits
Other fruits and gelatin flavors work very well in this too. Raspberry is a great alternative choice as would be any berry. And now there’s lots of great flavors for gelatin too–unlike years ago where choices were limited.
Low-fat cream cheese, aka, Neufchatel should work equally as well as regular cream cheese (don’t use fat free!!!) and a low-cal variety of whipped topping would also work if you’re counting calories.
The Recipe
Strawberry Cream Icebox Cake
Ingredients
Crust:
- 2 cups graham cracker crumbs
- 2/3 cup unsalted butter melted
Cream layer:
- 8 oz cream cheese softened
- 3/4 cup confectioner's sugar
- 1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream
Strawberry layer:
- 6 oz strawberry gelatin dessert 1 large or 2 small packets
- 2 1/2 cups boiling water
- 2 cups strawberries sliced
Instructions
- In a small bowl, mix the graham cracker crumbs and melted butter until they're all coated. Press into the bottom of a 9 x 13-inch pan (3L oblong pan).
- Beat cream cheese and confectioner's (icing) sugar in a large bowl; set aside. In a large bowl, beat the heavy cream until you get peaks that stand on their own. Fold the whipped cream into the cream cheese mixture. Spread over the crumbs in the pan.
- Mix the gelatin with the boiling water. Refrigerate until it starts to set. Then add the strawberries and spread over the top of the dessert. Chill at least 1 hour, preferably overnight.
- UK visitors--I believe a whipping cream mixture is now sold, but you can use 1/2 single cream and 1/2 double cream for the whipped cream. Also 2 packets of your "jelly" may be substituted for our powdered variety.
