Does anyone out there (besides me) remember staring longingly into the freezer section at the grocery store, wondering how to persuade your mom to buy the massive tub of vanilla, chocolate and strawberry ice cream (delightfully called “Neapolitan”) even though it was maybe a tad too big for your family of four and maybe a tad less interesting than some of the other flavors on offer (and by “less interesting” I mean no chips or swirls of fudge or peppermint candies – this was the mid-70s, after all, so salty caramel and cookie dough ice cream were merely what dreams were made of . . . and adult dreams, at that).
Anyway, that was me, and it was a stroke of pure genius (in my opinion) when I thought to build an icebox cake around the flavors of my younger self’s most coveted ice cream flavor (or combo of flavors, as the case maybe): Neapolitan Icebox Cake. Here, we have three different flavors of whipped cream layered with store bought graham crackers in a 9x5x2-inch loaf pan. With each bite, you get a forkful of each flavor, and a bit of graham-y goodness to boot.
I have simplified the assembly process of this Neapolitan Icebox Cake by instructing that you make one large batch of whipped cream, divide it in three, leave one as is (vanilla), add cocoa powder to the second and an easy-peasy strawberry puree to the third. This is a winner, peeps, and should not be missed – good for spring and summer in strawberry season, but mighty fine in the dead of winter with decidedly un-seasonal fresh berries, or frozen ones. The recipe for this delightful cake is on the food52 website (my most fave, if you must know) and you can find it right here. Oh, and if you’d like to actually see me make and assemble this treat, check this out.
Not into Neapolitan? I’ve got more icebox cake recipes to check out!