Party Icebox Cake

A Happy Accident

A few weeks back, my daughter made a get-well cake for her cousin, and it broke as it came out of the pan. "Yay!" I said. "Put that in the freezer to save." The time had finally come to make Party Icebox Cake. 

Why had I waited? Because the recipe called for "2 cups cubed stale cake" and that is not something I have on hand. Ever. Not until this happy accident, that is. 

As usual, there weren't many instructions with this recipe, and the ingredients list was vague. But a look through it told me this dish would be a lot like an English trifle without the custard. Did that mean it should be served in a straight-sided bowl? I had no idea, so I went to Google for help. 

I found an abundance of recipes for icebox cakes, but nothing that was exactly like this one. However, they all had a couple of things in common. They were layered, and they were served as a free-standing cake, not from a bowl. This was enough information to point me in what I hoped was the direction Grandma intended this recipe to go. 

How to make Party Icebox Cake

I took the rescued cake out of the freezer and cut it into cubes. They weren't uniform in size, but this dessert seemed like a casual one, so I hoped that fact wouldn't matter. 

I then went to work on the Jello, figuring it would need to cool before I poured it over the cake cubes. And that's where I ran into another question. The directions called for "1 cup hot water (squiggle) juice." Was the squiggle an "and" or an "or?" I didn't know. 

Back to Google where I discovered that Jello Jigglers call for a much lower ratio of gelatin to water than standard Jello. It seemed to me that the gelatin should be quite stiff to hold up the cake, so I decided the squiggle was "or." I also decided to use the quick set method, so I brought half a cup of water to boil, poured it into a bowl with the Jello, stirred until the gelatin dissolved, then added another half cup of ice water.

If I had been smart, I would have gone ahead with the rest of the recipe after the ice cubes had melted. But no, I put the Jello in the freezer to continue cooling because I still had strawberries to slice . . . 

. . . and cream to whip. (The recipe didn't say to sweeten it, but I did because it's what Grandma would have done.) 

With all the elements ready, it was time for the layering. I took the bowl of Jello out of the freezer, and . . . oops. It was too solid. 

I tried stirring it vigorously. but that didn't do much good. Back to Google. 

What can I do with Jello that is too set? Plenty of responses came up for what to do if your Jello doesn't set.  Finally, I found one source that said you can gently reheat it on low. And it worked. 

Okay, now I could do the layering. There were no directions for the size of the pan to layer the ingredients in, so I took a stab at a 9-inch springform pan. I lined it with plastic so that the Jello wouldn't seep through the cracks. I then began with the cake cubes. Here are half of the cubes--1 cup--in the pan.

Not nearly enough. I had plenty more, so I added cubes until the bottom of the pan was mostly covered. This amounted to about 2 1/2 cups. 

Instead of combining the strawberries with the Jello, as the recipe said to do, I layered them on separately to better control their distribution. Half the berries went on next. 

Then half the remelted Jello. 

It was starting to look pretty. Grandma would definitely have sprinkled half the nuts over next, but I decided to skip them for this trial. I next spread half of the cream over the top to complete the first layer, but the coverage was bare. I was going to need more cream if I wanted a smooth and attractive top. I whipped some more then repeated the layers with the remaining ingredients--cake, strawberries, and Jello. 

The rest of the cream--plus the additional cream I'd whipped--finished off the top.  

I covered it with plastic wrap and placed it in the fridge until the next day. When I took off the ring, huzzah, the cake stood on its own. I trimmed the plastic to the edges of the cake because I didn't think it would be a good idea to pull it out from underneath. You couldn't even tell it was there.

The Verdict

Even before I took a bite, I'd already decided one thing--this cake is eye-catching. I loved the contrast between the bright red and white. We sliced it into twelve pieces, and they were pretty too.   

We dug in, and murmurs of appreciation filled the air. "It takes like Memorial Day," said one of my daughters, referencing our annual breakfast of pancakes, strawberries, and cream. 

It did taste like Memorial Day and the 4th of July and every other summer gathering. I could imagine a cake sprinkled with fresh raspberries from our patch or peaches from our trees, using different flavors of jello to complement the fruit. But what if I didn't have a broken cake on hand?  Sara Lee's frozen pound cakes might come in handy then. I'll definitely be testing that theory when the raspberries come on, and you, no doubt, will want to do the same. For your eating enjoyment, the tweaked and more informative recipe is below.