chocolate icebox cake;

Originally posted August 31, 2016; updated July 13, 2021. Last updated January 14, 2024 for content and clarity.

Chocolate icebox cake makes for such a light and fluffy summer dessert. For me, it’s the perfect dessert on a hot day. Chilled from the fridge, with light whipped cream and chocolate deliciousness, with a hint of sweetness. With only two ingredients and no baking, it’s a perfect summer potluck or BBQ addition too! Of course, I teach you how to make fresh whipped from scratch, so technically it’s a whopping four whole ingredients. Still, doesn’t get much easier right?!

Fresh whipped cream is a must here! Don’t you just love fresh whipped cream? I do. It’s delicious and luscious and light and fluffy. The best part about making it yourself? You control the sweetness. All you need is heavy cream, sugar, and vanilla, and whip away!

My recipe is of course suited to my taste–the perfect balance of light and creamy with just a hint of sweetness. But if you’ve got a huge sweet tooth, then lean into it! Start with the recipe below, but do a little taste test as you go along and add more sugar if you prefer. But I like that mild sweetness that makes this chocolate icebox cake from being overwhelmingly sugary sweet.

For best results, whip for a minute and as it starts to thicken do a taste test and add more sugar if desired. You don’t want to wait until the end and risk over whipping!

secret to success

Some people swear by refrigerating or freezing their bowls/beaters. Honestly, if it makes a difference, I don’t notice it. And even if it did, I wouldn’t remember to pop them in before I wanted to make this chocolate icebox cake anyway. So I just grab my room-temperature bowl and beaters and go to town making whipped cream!

That brings us to the other main ingredient for chocolate icebox cake–the chocolate wafer cookies. You need a thin chocolate cookie so that it absorbs the moisture from the whipped cream to make a cohesive dessert and get that cake-quality. It is called chocolate icebox cake, after all.

My family used to make this recipe growing up and we always used nabisco famous chocolate wafer cookies. There may be other options out there, but I’ve never tried other options. I mean, why fix what isn’t broken, am I right? You’ll want to layer the cookies and whipped cream into a log, and then coat the outside with more whipped cream. This will give the most coverage to the cookies and make a delicious cake. The cookies are delicate, but you can always use the whipped cream to glue any broken cookies back together. Icebox cake is rather forgiving that way.

Make sure to smear some whipped cream on the plate. This allows the stacks to stay upright in place.

secret to success

The actual construction is simple: wafer, cream, wafer, cream.  The way that my sister and I were taught to do it is to make smaller stacks, beginning and ending with a wafer.  When you have your first stack of ~3-5 cookies sandwiched with whipped cream, then add a smear of whipped cream to your plate. Press you stack into the smear to help it stand up, then continue making stacks (one of the ends will need to have whipped cream from now on) so you can join it with the stacks on the plate.

Once you have your stacks assembled, you coat the outside with whipped cream to fully surround the cookies. It takes a spatula and a steady hand to get the logs looking pretty. Of course, depends on how much of a perfectionist you are, it won’t affect the taste as long as the stacks are fully covered for your chocolate icebox cake.

We also usually make two stacks out of the full box, here my photos are of one log using roughly half the cookies in the box. If you put two logs on the same plate, make sure you leave enough space between to get your spatula or knife in there to coat them in whipped cream!

When serving, cut on a diagonal and you’ll see the nice “zebra” effect instead of an irregular, flat color.

secret to success

Here’s a pro tip for you: when you slice the cake for serving, cut on a diagonal. It’ll make a pretty layered effect, as you can see in my photos here. There’s nothing wrong with cutting flat slices, but the way the cookies are layered means you will just get a wall of chocolate or a wall of whipped cream and it’s not nearly as pretty.

In fact, one of my friends informed me that chocolate icebox cake is also called a “zebra cake”. So if you call it zebra cake then you better be cutting diagonally to get those stripes!

secrets to success;

Want all the best tips and tricks to make this recipe a success? Check out the blog post above to find out more!

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more recipes;

Looking for other light summer desserts? Check out these recipes:

• These two ingredient lemon cake bars couldn’t get more refreshing, or easier!
• Homemade chocolate cookie ice cream sandwiches make for a cold refreshing treat on a hot summer day
• For an individual-sized treat, try out these mini blackberry lime tarts.