Strawberry Shortcake Icebox Cake
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This Strawberry Shortcake Icebox Cake is an easy dessert that’s perfect for summer! Made with fresh strawberries, a berry cream filling and soft ladyfingers, it’s light, simple and layered to perfection!
Looking for a traditional strawberry shortcake recipe? Try my easy strawberry shortcake recipe with homemade biscuits and homemade whipped cream!
Strawberry Shortcake Icebox Cake
So the boys are at a super fun and cute age. They are running around like crazy and super playful. They love being outside and their legs are covered in scrapes. Typical little boys.
They are also at a kind of in-between age where they aren’t talking yet (oh my gosh it should happen ANY DAY NOW!), but they understand you pretty well. Even though they understand you though, they are getting little minds of their own.
Well I took them to the store over the weekend for a few things – exciting things like storage boxes and groceries. In order to have two of them in the cart, I use a buggy bench (brilliant invention!) for one of them, which means Brooks was in the main part of the cart with everything else. It seemed like every thing I put in the cart ended up in his mouth or being thrown out onto the floor because he didn’t want it in his way. Oh yea – that big plastic storage box? I ended up just having to carry it and push the cart one handed. The little bugger.
And then as I’m checking out, Ashton’s turning around as far as he can from the front of the cart and grabbing Brooks’ face. They are a big, adorable mess and they make shopping for anything more interesting and time consuming.
How to Make Strawberry Shortcake Icebox Cake
Fortunately making this Strawberry Shortcake Icebox Cake isn’t nearly as complicated as shopping with twin one year olds. In fact, it’s about as easy as it gets!
To get started, you’ll chop up your strawberries and combine them with a little sugar. Let them sit a bit while you making the cream filling.
The filling is a combination of cream cheese, sugar and whipped cream. The whipped cream is folded into the cream cheese mixture and then the strawberries are added. Super quick and simple!
Ladyfingers are used between the filling layers to mimic the shortcake part of strawberry shortcake. They are perfect in this dessert because they are soft and cake-like, but you don’t have to worry about baking them! Love it!
You’ll end up with two layers of ladyfingers and two layers of filling. Of course, if you aren’t able to find the soft ladyfingers in your area, there are substitutions you can use. I would probably suggest using shortbread cookies, but any vanilla cookie would work well. If you do end up using a cookie, you’ll just want to dip them in a little milk before adding them to the icebox cake. It’ll help them soften up as the icebox cake firms up.
Once everything is layered together, refrigerate it until the filling firms up. The topping can be added at any point – when the cake is chilling, or just before serving. It’s a little graham cracker crumble that adds a bit of crunch to the top. Just combine some graham cracker crumbs, sugar, a touch of salt and melted butter. I like to toast it in the oven a bit so that it crisps up and stays crispier while on the cake, but you could skip the baking step if you wanted to. In leu of the topping, you could also just cover the top of the cake with more strawberries. Totally up to you!
Icebox Cake is the Perfect No Bake Dessert for Summer
This Strawberry Shortcake Icebox Cake is the perfect dessert for summer and is (pretty much) no bake – making it super simple to put together. It’s a great, easy way to serve strawberry shortcake and would be a great addition to a summer potluck. I hope you enjoy it!
Read transcript
More Strawberry Shortcake Desserts
Strawberry Shortcake Cake
Easy Strawberry Shortcake Recipe
Strawberry Shortcake Cheesecake
Strawberry Shortcake Trifle
Strawberry Shortcake Popsicles
Strawberry Shortcake Icebox Cake
This Strawberry Shortcake Icebox Cake is an easy dessert that’s perfect for summer! Made with fresh strawberries, a berry cream filling and soft ladyfingers, it’s light, simple and layered to perfection!
- Prep Time: 1 hour 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 5 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes
- Yield: 15 1x
- Category: Dessert
- Method: No Bake
- Cuisine: American
Ingredients
Strawberries
- 2 lbs fresh strawberries, washed, hulled and chopped
- 3 tbsp (24g) sugar
Filling
- 8 oz cream cheese, room temperature
- 1/4 cup (52g) sugar
- 2 3/4 cups (ml) heavy whipping cream, cold
- 1 1/4 cups (144g) powdered sugar
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 6 oz ladyfingers*
Graham Cracker Crumble Topping
- 1/3 cup (89g) graham cracker crumbs (about 3 graham cracker sheets)
- 1 tbsp (13g) sugar
- Pinch of salt
- 2 1/2 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
- Strawberries, for decorating
Instructions
1. Combine the chopped strawberries and sugar and set aside while you make the rest of the filling.
2. Add the cream cheese and sugar to a large mixer bowl and beat until well combined and smooth. Set aside.
3. In another large mixer bowl, combine the heavy whipping cream, powdered sugar and vanilla extract and whip on high speed until stiff peaks form.
4. Add about 1/3 of the whipped cream to the cream cheese mixture and gently fold to combine. Continue adding another third of the whipped cream to the cream cheese mixture until all has been combined.
5. Add the strawberries (without the juices) to the cream cheese mixture and gently fold together.
6. Place a full layer of ladyfingers in the bottom of a 9×13 inch cake pan.
7. Add about half of the strawberry cream cheese mixture to the top of the ladyfingers and spread into an even layer.
8. Add another full layer of ladyfingers on top of the strawberry layer, then add the remaining strawberry cream cheese mixture and smooth into an even layer.
9. Place the icebox cake into the fridge to set, about 4-5 hours.
10. While the cake is in the fridge, make the graham cracker topping. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
11. Combine the crumbs, sugar, salt and melted butter and stir together until well combined.
12. Spread the mixture evenly onto a parchment paper or silicone baking mat lined cookie sheet and bake for 5-7 minutes, until the edges of the mixture start to brown.
13. Remove from oven, allow to cool for a few minutes, then break into crumble pieces.
14. Once the crumble is cooled, sprinkle on top of the icebox cake along with some additional strawberries. Let the icebox cake continue to set in the fridge until you are ready to serve it.
15. Icebox cake is best for 2-3 days, or as long as the strawberries stay fresh.
Notes
I used two 3 oz packages of the softer, more sponge cake-like ladyfingers. Not the firm ones. I find them in the bakery section of our grocery store. If you’re unable to find them in your area, you could substitute them with Nilla Wafer cookies or shortbread cookies. If you use the cookies, I’d suggest dipping them in milk quickly before adding them to help them soften up, like I did in my Raspberry Almond Icebox Cake. You could also use angel food cake.
The graham cracker crumble could be baked or not baked. I like it baked because it gives it a little more crunch that stays crunchy even in the fridge, but it would be fine either way.
Keywords: strawberry shortcake recipe, easy strawberry shortcake recipe, best strawberry shortcake recipe, strawberry shortcake cake recipe, strawberry shortcake recipe from scratch, homemade strawberry shortcake, no bake cake, no bake dessert, no bake dessert recipe, strawberry icebox cake
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This dessert looks delicious, Lindsay! And the twins sound so cute 🙂
Thanks Erin! 🙂
Lindsay, this summer dessert looks so simple and delectable! And the twins sound adorable! My older sister and I are toddler and baking obsessed already at 12 and 14 🙂
Hi, Lindsay! I’m so happy to hear about the boys and their antics. So much fun!!!
This dessert
is just in time for strawberry season. Cool and refreshing is the summer motto. Thanks for sharing!
Hi Lindsey are you able to make this Strawberry Shortcake icebox cake with ladyfingers for tiramisu?
The recipe is written for the soft ladyfingers. If you’re referring to the hard ones, you would probably have to make some adjustments so that they soften up enough. You might want to dip them in milk or something before adding them, much like you would dip them in espresso for tiramisu.
Okay thank you so much
I cant find any ladyfingers 😐
There is a note within the recipe about some possible substitutions.
When I wasn’t able to the find the lady fingers in the bakery section of Hannaford’s, a friend suggested I ask at the bakery because they’ll usually kept in the freezer. I was able to find them and made the recipe yesterday.
Look in the freezer section. By the cool whip, frozen pies, cookie dough section.
Hello I just have a quick question regarding the 3 T for the strawberries. It looked like more than 3 T in video. I just want to make sure so I don’t mess it up. Thanks and it looks so yummy.
Yeah I’m not sure why it looks like so much in the video, but 3 tablespoons is correct.
My husband & I dont like strawberries, but I love raspberries. Could this be done with raspberries & if so, fresh, frozen & & how much?
Raspberries should be fine. I haven’t ever tried it with raspberries, so I can’t say for sure but I would use basically the same amount of raspberries. I would also suggest fresh raspberries. In my experience frozen raspberries can be pretty soggy when thawed. It would be hard to chop and pretty mushy in the filling.
I have a question regarding cream cheese
Can you use the regular cream cheese or is there a special one.thank you
You should use the regular cream cheese that comes in blocks.
Hi,
I don’t see whipped cream in the ingredients list, but I see it in the directions and in the video. How much whipped cream is needed? Thank you! 🙂
I see the heavy whipping cream needed, but I also see that the recipe calls for whipped cream. So just wondering how much of that. 🙂 Sorry, I meant to make that distinction in my first comment. 😌
The heavy whipping cream and powdered sugar are used to make the whipped cream in step three. It is homemade whipped cream. Does that help answer your question?
Yes, thanks. 🙂
I’m going to make this for the 4th of July but I’m going to make one layer with blueberries.
I made this desert for a munchie lunch and everyone loved it! I used the harder lady fingers but I didn’t buy enough heavy cream so I used a cup of half & Half with a 1/2 t of cream of tartar, it was a little loose but once together it was perfect!
I also made it again today with the soft lady fingers with half the strawberries substituted fresh blueberries… this version was even better!! Thank you Lindsay for me new fav desert!
So glad to hear you enjoyed it! And that both versions of ladyfingers worked well!
I am really looking forward to making this dessert for July 4th! I plan to use Angel Food Cake. Have you made it using this cake? How do you handle slicing the layers of cake? Thanks!
I haven’t made it that way, but think it would work well. I’d slice thin pieces of the cake (similar to the ladyfinger thickness) and use those to make the cake layers.
Could you share the brand of ladyfingers you used for the recipe? Ive never bought soft ones before so would like some guidance. The ones you use look so spongy and soft!!
These would be the ones. https://www.plummarket.com/store/specialty-bakers-lady-fingers-3oz.html?p_id=19141&gclid=Cj0KCQjwpPHoBRC3ARIsALfx-_KRDwU4oqOnXvyOJBHanYV8mbAm1Wq2rsWLWIp_xZeY8nrqSRtF50AaAtkyEALw_wcB
Can you freez this
Yes, you could.
Do you put it in the fridge or freezer for 4 to 5 hours. The recipe says fridge but the video says freeze. Help,,,, Haha
The video is incorrect, sorry about that. You refrigerate it.
Read through all of these looking for the same thing…..I like the idea of fridge as oppose to freezer
Just made this! So good! I did buy the hard ladyfingers and soaked them for a little bit in milk. They came out super soft!
I’m so glad to hear you enjoyed it!
Did you do a quick dip in the milk or let them sit for a minute?
A fairly quick dip – a few seconds.
Just made this dessert for July 4th …. total success!!! It was light and delicious!!! thank you for sharing this recipe! ( I made zero changes)
★★★★★
Awesome! I’m so glad to hear it!
Made this for the 4th and it was so good! Sold out!
★★★★★
Awesome! I’m so glad to hear that! Thanks Andrea!
Hi Lindsay,
I just read through your whole page and before that had already bought the hard ladyfingers and didn’t soak them in anything. Have I messed this dessert up do you think? It’s ok if so because I just wanted to try it for fun and share with my family but I’m kind of stressing now. Thanks in advance.
I honestly haven’t tried it with the hard ones. They may be more firm, but if you let it sit overnight I would think it should still be OK.
My daughter made this for the 4th of July and it was absolutely delicious! Cold, light and refreshing!!!! She had to use 3 packages of the Ladyfingers. We will definitely make this again!
★★★★★
I’m so glad you enjoyed it!
How many cups to 2 pounds of chopped strawberries?Thanks
So, is it 2 lbs of strawberries for the filling plus additional strawberries for the topping? Or, do I portion off some of the strawberries from the 2 lbs?
I used some additional strawberries for the topping and used all 2 pounds in the filling. But if you prefer not to have to buy another carton of strawberries, you could use a few of them for the top. While you’d have a few less strawberries in the filling, it should be OK.
Hello, the recipe calls for 2 pounds of strawberries chopped is that what gets mixed into filling or is it 3 tablespoons as seen in video
The 2 pounds of strawberries are what is in the filling.
How come I can’t print your recipes I can do all others?
All of the recipes have a print button within the pink recipe card.
Another hit LIndsay! I have so many of your recipes, and I never change any of them. Today, however, I made a pretzel crumble for the top, instead of the graham crumb crumble. (I love my salty to sweet desserts) and I have to say it’s pretty awesome. (it was awesome to begin with, but, you know) 🙂 Thank you!
★★★★★
I’m so glad you enjoyed it! And I love the pretzel idea!
After preparing this dessert, could we be able to freeze it & still be soft and moist??
You can freeze it. If you’re going to eat it frozen, it’ll be pretty firm. If you want to thaw it before eating, I would do it in the fridge.
I made this for Easter and everyone loved it. I used the hard lady fingers. I brushed them with amaretto and some of the reserved strawberry juices. Delicious. Very light. I didn’t do the graham cracker topping just decorated with sliced strawberries. Yum😋
★★★★★
Hi Lindsay. This looks delicious and I can’t wait to make this. What size and type of container did you use?
I have made this dessert several times goes really fast number one one my dessert list
★★★★