Don’t Think Twice – Individual Black Forest Icebox Cakes

A rich, flavourful and gorgeous individual serving-sized cake that requires no baking? Inconceivable!

When you don’t have central air conditioning, keeping the house cool during hot weather becomes high priority. We’ve had a lot of hot weather this year. As a result, most of our cooking has been happening outside to avoid turning on the oven or stove. That’s where this cake comes in. It requires no baking and only requires cooking if you decide to make the cherry preserves yourself.

Icebox cakes are a relatively new discovery for me and let me tell you, there are some pretty spectacular looking examples of them. The original icebox cake recipe has been printed on the Nabisco (Mr Christie in Canada) Chocolate Wafer boxes since the late 1920s. I now realize that I have been eating more complicated versions of them for years — my mother still bakes her own cookie layers, smothers them with either of a perfectly silky lemon or cocoa cream and then chills the whole assembled unit until the cookie has softened into ribbons of cake.

For our version, in addition to the homemade cherry preserves, we used light and airy (and vegan!) coconut whipped cream, another recent discovery for me. Add to that the chocolate wafers and you’re ready to go. The sum of these ingredients together are so much better than individually. Emma didn’t have to think twice about asking for more after I offered her a taste. Once you have all the ingredients ready, these come together very quickly and easily – which is great since it is summer and we want to be out there enjoying every last moment of it together with our family.

Chocolate and cherries with a hint of coconut. It’s a divine combination!

Individual Black Forest Icebox Cakes

inspired by Nabisco’s Chocolate Refrigerator Roll
(makes 12 individual cakes)

Coconut Whipped Cream:

1 398ml can organic full-fat coconut milk, refrigerated overnight or in the freezer for 2 hours prior to use
2-3 tbsp icing sugar

Layers and Garnish:

1 cup cherry preserves (homemade or store-bought)
2 boxes chocolate wafer cookies (~45 in each box and there’s likely to be broken ones in the boxes)
2 squares dark chocolate, shaved
1 cup cherries, washed, pitted and coarsely chopped (optional)

Open the chilled can of coconut milk and remove the solids to a mixer bowl. Set aside the remaining liquid for another use. Sprinkle the icing sugar over top of the solids and mix it in slightly. Then, whip the cream until stiff peaks form. Place back into refrigerator to keep it cool until it is time to use it.

Setup your workspace and ingredients to help facilitate easy assembly of the cakes.

First, line a 9″x13″ rectangular pan (with sides that are at least 2″ high) with plastic wrap leaving wrap to hang over the edges slightly.

Next, place 12 cookies spaced 1″-1 1/2″ apart in a single layer in the prepared pan. Using an icing bag, pipe a scant tablespoon’s worth of coconut whipped cream on to each of the cookies. Sandwich a cookie on top of the whipped cream, pressing softly to not force the cream out the edges.

On this next layer, gently spread 1 or 2 teaspoonfuls of cherry preserves. Sandwich another cookie on top of the preserves layer. Repeat, alternating coconut whipped cream and cherry preserves between the cookie layers until you have 5 layers of cookie. Top the fifth cookie with whipped cream.

Lay another sheet of plastic wrap over the top of the pan and fold over the edges to seal the cakes. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours and up to overnight.

Prior to serving, spoon preserves or chopped cherries over the top layer of coconut whipped cream and sprinkle with chocolate shavings.

Tips and Suggestions:

Although the coconut whipped cream and cherry preserves taste wonderful together, don’t put them in the same layer together. As the cakes chill and set, the preserves stain the whipped cream where they come into contact. Although it tastes just fine, it doesn’t look very tasty.
An alternative to the chocolate wafer cookies is to use graham crackers. Originally, Emma wasn’t certain she liked the chocolate wafer cookies so we also made some with delicious ones with graham crackers.