The simplest, most delicious desserts always come right from your Grandmother’s kitchen. My Grandma swore me to secrecy (even though the recipe is on the back of the box) when I first learned how to make this craving crushing cake. It has been served at just about every family birthday party and gathering that I’ve ever been to since I could eat solid food.
Some refer to this layered, no-bake cake as icebox cake, but I’ve always called it zebra cake, which through endless inside family jokes, evolved to be called zebra meat. As you can imagine, the name doesn’t accurately describe the taste (I’m pretty sure actual zebra meat is illegal, or it should be). If anyone has ever had this delicacy, they will tell you that it’s a fabulous combination of chocolatey cookies that taste like the outsides of Oreos, mixed with the light fluffy taste of homemade whipped cream.
Prep Time: 30 minutes
Bake Time: 0 minutes
Wait Time: Overnight (12-24 hours)
Total Time: 1 day
Servings: 20
Ingredients:
1 box of Famous chocolate wafers (dependent on how big you want your cake to be)
1 pint (2 cups) whipping cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon powdered sugar
Photo: Amy Jiang
Directions:
1. Use electric mixer or if you’re feeling like a beast, whip with a whisk by hand (which I did because I do not own an electric mixer) to mix whipping cream, vanilla and sugar. Mix until the cream is fluffy and can hold peaks, approximately 7 minutes with electric mixer.
Photo: Amy Jiang
2. Sandwich whipped cream between the chocolate wafers vertically, so that they are standing up (not like a traditional sandwich). Use about a tablespoon of whipped cream between each cookie. Continue to add cookies to the log and shape to your liking.
Photo: Amy Jiang
3. Once you’ve used all the cookies, cover all the surfaces with the remaining whipped cream.
Photo: Amy Jiang
4. Let the cake sit in the refrigerator for 12-24 hours before serving (the longer the better), which allows for the cookies to soften and melt into the whipped cream for the perfect consistency.
5. When you cut into Zebra cake at just the right angle, mastered by only experienced eaters, it looks like perfect black and white zebra stripes. It always makes for a great, dramatic reveal after looking at the seemingly plain and undecorated white, fluffy log.
Photo: Amy Jiang
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