Quick & Easy No-Bake Strawberry Icebox Cake

If you can't get enough of strawberries in the springtime and you're looking for recipe ideas, here you go!

No baking required.  Hardly any prep.  The most time-consuming step was washing and slicing the berries!

Today's Playlist

• "Ain't No Rest For The Wicked"...Cage the Elephant
• "I'm Shakin'"...Jack White
• "Scar Tissue"...Red Hot Chili Peppers
• "Dead!"...My Chemical Romance
• "Seven Nation Army"...The White Stripes

No-Bake Strawberry Icebox Cake (8 to 10 servings, in an 8 x 8-inch pan)

Printable Recipe

• 1 box (4-serving size) instant vanilla pudding
• 1 1/2 cups milk (I used 1%, use what you like)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 24 lady fingers
• 1 cup heavy whipping cream
• 2-ish tablespoons confectioners sugar
• 1-lb strawberries, hulled, washed, dried and sliced

Gather your ingredients.  

Missing: the confectioners sugar, which was an afterthought that I added as I was whipping the cream.

Confession: I've never bought or used lady fingers before!  I don't even think I've ever eaten one, either.  

I've always seen them displayed by the strawberries, but I've never been tempted to buy them.  I don't know what came over me this time, they were in my cart before I had a chance to think about what I was doing.

Okay, back to our recipe.

Whisk the pudding and a splash of vanilla with the milk.  

Set it aside, so that it can thicken as you prep your other ingredients.

Whip the cream until it's light and fluffy.  I usually add in the confectioners sugar when it starts to foam up.  You want to whip it until it just starts to hold stiff peaks.

You can skip the confectioners sugar if you like.  I usually add a tiny bit of confectioners sugar because unsweetened whipped cream can sometimes taste a bit sour when contrasted with sweetened desserts.

Remove the hulls, wash and slice your strawberries.  I put them onto a paper towel after I slice them so that any excess moisture can be absorbed.

Time to assemble!  You will need an 8 x 8-inch baking pan. 

And you will notice in the following pictures, I did not use an 8 x 8-inch pan!  I used a couple of smaller dishes, one to keep and one to give away.  

There are no hard and fast rules!

To assemble: arrange half of the lady fingers in a single layer in the bottom of your dish.

You can see in the above photo that the pudding has thickened nicely.  I gave it a quick whisk just to make sure it was smooth.

Spoon half of the pudding onto the lady fingers.  The lady fingers will absorb some of the moisture from the pudding and plump up nicely!

Layer about half of the strawberry slices on top of the pudding.

Now repeat the layers!

Another layer with the remaining lady fingers.

Topped with all of the remaining pudding.

Save a few slices of strawberries to top the cake with, and put the remaining slices on top of the pudding layer.

Spread the whipped cream on top.

Finally, top the cake with the strawberry slices that you had put aside.

I hope you're more imaginative with your garnishing than I am.  This is the best I could come up with.  

You can either slice and serve your cake immediately, or refrigerate it and give the lady fingers a bit of time to soak up some of the pudding.

And in typical scatterbrained-fashion, I did not capture a picture when I actually cut this cake.

Fortunately, we filmed a cooking show a few days ago and guess what happened to be on our menu? Strawberry Icebox Cake!  How convenient, as I was able to snap a photo to put a finish on this post.

(I'll be posting about the cooking show and its menu soon.)

Enjoy.