Posted by Tastefully Simple on October 26, 2021
“Icebox cakes,” which were introduced way back in the 1930s as a way for American housewives to make an approximation of fancy French desserts like trifles and mousses, are making a comeback!
True, they’ve outlived the appliance that gave them their name, but the principle is the same: a refrigerated dessert assembled from simple ingredients that don’t require heating up the oven.
(Full disclosure: I actually DID use the oven when developing my own icebox recipe recently, to bake the delicious Peanut Butter Bliss™ Cookies that form the “crust” of the dessert. It added about a half hour to the total prep time – well worth it!)
I’ve been seeing a lot of icebox cake recipes on Pinterest and thought I’d try my hand at it. Since I have some 3-inch ring molds I’ve been looking for a reason to use, I chose to make single-serve icebox cakes instead of one large dessert. This strategy had the happy advantage of limiting my serving sizes; I’d likely just sit and eat the whole pan of these in one sitting otherwise!
Thus was born my recipe for Peanut Butter Banana Mini Icebox Cakes!
The flavor combo of peanut butter, banana and chocolate appealed to me. I ended up subbing easily spreadable hazelnut spread for the chocolate in the final recipe – honestly, it tastes like chocolate to me anyway (shrug).
I enjoyed assembling these little treats and found they stacked up easily inside the ring molds. Stacking them “freestyle” without something to contain them is possible, but a little messier. Don’t have ring molds? Make your own with empty soup cans or several layers of aluminum foil folded into a ring shape.
The mini icebox cakes turned out fancy enough to serve company, but easy enough to whip up for solitary snacking. Win-win!
You might want to try mixing up the ingredients to create your own variation: substitute Ah Sugar Sugar!™ Cookies for the Peanut Butter Bliss™ cookies, for instance, and use hazelnut spread to flavor the mousse instead of peanut butter.
Other ideas:
Use Peanut Butter Brownies, baked in a 9×12-inch pan and cut into 3-inch rounds, as the base of the layers.
Make the mousse with Sugar Cookie Cheese Ball Mix or Mai Tai Cheese Ball Mix™ instead of peanut butter.
Substitute Creamy Caramel Sauce for the hazelnut spread on the cookies.
Really, you’re only limited by your own creativity. Whatever combo of ingredients you choose, it’s bound to be delicious!
kgm