Holiday season is in full swing, so for the rest of the month I’ll be sharing some dishes that are cause for celebration- from drinks to desserts to apps. Let’s start with a dessert and this cranberry chocolate icebox cake.

icebox cake

It’s been hard for me to get going into Christmas this year if I’m honest. My tree has been up and my favorite tunes have been lingering in the background but the last few weeks have been so busy it’s been hard to focus. Plus, as I was about to head to Florida this week, the hullabaloo of it all became too much for Crawley Cat and he had a bit of a stress flare up – and unfortunately I had to leave him in the hands of another to recover.

icebox cake

chocolate icebox cake

So send good thoughts up to Michigan for the C-man.

Anyway, back to this cake. The idea came up because I had some extra cranberry curd lingering from the earl grey cranberry ice cream and while I initially leaned towards doing something like a parfait or a trifle, I settled on an icebox cake because some classics never die.

Except this almost did! Anyone who grew up eating some iteration of this cake knows that the base should be Nabisco’s famous chocolate wafers- but they discontinued them! And as I scored the shelves of three supermarkets to come up with an acceptable alternative, I settled on chocolate graham crackers (which I also had to go to two different stores to find, oddly enough). I almost gave up and used regular honey grahams but both Mom and L strongly pushed me towards the chocolate. And I’m glad they did.

cranberry chocolate icebox cake

The glue that holds those chocolate grahams together is the leftover cranberry curd folded into real whipped cream. Plain whipped cream coats the outside, and sugared fresh cranberries gives it all that holiday sparkly shine.

Once the curd is made, this comes together in five minutes and an overnight and makes one loaf-size cake.

Don’t have curd? Loosen up your favorite seed-free jam as a substitute.

Isn’t it pretty?

Style AND substance! And if you want some extra pizzaz, drizzle some chocolate over the top. No one would be mad about it!

Cranberry Chocolate IceBox Cake

December 1, 2023

Servings: 8-10

Prep: 5 min

Total: 13 hr

Difficulty: Easy

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Traditional icebox cake gets a holiday twist with homemade cranberry curd in this cranberry chocolate icebox cake.

By: Chrissy

Ingredients

2 cups heavy whipping cream
20 chocolate full-size graham cracker sheets
¾ cup cranberry curd or seedless jam
¼ cup confectioner’s sugar

Directions

Step 1 Line a 9×5” loaf pan with cling wrap. Set aside.
Step 2 Using a hand or stand mixer, whip 1 ¼ cups whipping cream to stiff peaks (should have a smooth texture). Fold in the curd or jam until completely combined. If you’re using jam, you may need to loosen it a bit in the microwave – if you do that, make sure it’s completely cooled before adding it to the cream.
Step 3 Spread ¼ cup of the whipped cream into a thin layer at the bottom of your lined cake pan. This will help the graham crackers sit upright.
Step 4 To get the vertical stripes, place about 1 ½ -2 tablespoons of the whipped cream on each graham cracker, and stack sideways in the loaf pan. Repeat until you get 10 grahams across and then start the second row to get another 10 across, for 20 total. Spread the rest of the cranberry curd whipped cream over the top and the sides of the loaf. Chill in the refrigerator overnight.
Step 5 Before you’re ready to serve it, whip the remaining ¾ cup of cream along with the confectioner’s sugar into stiff peaks. Using the cling film, carefully turn the chilled loaf onto a serving platter. Cover the top and sides of the loaf with the fresh whipped cream. Garnish with sugared cranberries if desired and serve!