Icebox Cake

My lovely sister Maria was in town over the weekend, and I was so excited to have her. I knew it meant a weekend of gossiping over lots of wine, ordering Chinese food, and having a third set of hands around to help with the twins. Oh, and dessert.

I've never made an icebox cake before, and I've only ever had it once, when my friend Kara brought it from Magnolia Bakery one night while I was on bed rest and craving cake every day. It's delicious, creamy, and a cinch to make because it's essentially two ingredients: whipped cream and cookies. 

I added a little bit of sugar to my cream, because I know that's how Maria likes it (she's a little addicted to the stuff, though you'd never know it because she also runs half-marathons and is a size 2) but you don't have to. Classic icebox cake calls for Nabisco chocolate wafer cookies, but they are oddly hard to find - you can order them on Amazon if you're thinking ahead, but I haven't seen any in supermarkets around here. So instead, I used Oreos...or actually organic chocolate cream cookies, which were all Evan could find at the corner market (ahh, hipster Brooklyn) in a pinch. And although I scoffed at them at first, they tasted exactly like Oreos.

Once you have your cookies and cream (you can also use Cool Whip if that's your thing; I will snobbishly admit that it's not mine) you can assemble your cake. My refrigerator was packed and I didn't want to risk bumping the cake into anything, so I built it in a trifle dish. You can make it stand alone on a plate, in a few different ways; the most popular are the classic round cake and the log. Basically, you layer the cookies and whipped cream until you're done. Then refrigerate for at least six hours. Everything melds together, and the cookies get soft and cakey, it's wonderful.

A few tips:

1. Don't overdo it on the whipped cream. This recipe, adapted from the Magnolia Bakery cookbook, says 1/2 cup per layer...I probably did closer to a cup so it didn't have quite the stripey chocolate-and-cream affect I was looking for. And it was a little too much cream on the palate.

2. Oreos are a delicious choice, but the cream center kind of messes with the classic pudding-like texture of an icebox cake. Just FYI...

3. It doesn't have to be just chocolate and whipped cream.  Use thin chocolate chip cookies (like Tate's, yummm) and chocolate mousse, graham crackers and lemon cream, shortbread thins and strawberry cream. Use your imagination or check out these ideas.

4. If you have leftover whipped cream, throw some in your iced coffee, you won't be sorry.