Creative misadventure: First attempt at making a Snickers Icebox Cake

by Chronically Creative - Tuesday, November 26, 2013

I wanted to have a go at making an icebox cake, so I made a Snickers one for Father's Day last year ( I forgot to post about it, oops). My father LOVES Snickers chocolate so I thought this would make the perfect cake to help celebrate his awesomeness. It's a no bake cake consisting of several layers of graham crackers spread with homemade chocolate and peanut butter pudding, topped with chopped Snickers, caramel and chocolate ganache sauce.

Ever since I've been on Pinterest and have been reading American baking blogs, I have wanted to bake with graham crackers. To me they sounded (and looked) pretty great to use in desserts. I picked some up from USA Foods here in Melbourne.

beginning assembling

I found the recipe I used on a blog through Pinterest and thought it looked amaaazing. I thought it would be a great recipe to try because it looked like "cakery for the lazy." Well this cake turned out to be an absolute nightmare for me to make. There were just way too many steps and layers involved for it to be chronic fatigue friendly.

chocolate ganache

I had a really difficult time - I set off the smoke alarm, had problems with the caramel sauce and also had a double boiler filled with steaming water and sauce explode on me. It really was a miracle that my lip only got a little burnt and that I actually had something to put in the freezer and serve on Father's Day!

peanut butter pudding

This cake stole all my spoons and sanity.

before freezing

How did it taste? Well I can't actually tell you because I didn't eat any due to my dislike of nuts. My family did eat half of it (there were many complaints about it being too hard) but I don't think that was because of exceptional taste; it was probably because of the effort I went to.

I can see how this a good concept for a cake. I think this is one of those cakes that may take a few tries to perfect. I'd love to try a nutella, twix or mars bar icebox cake but I don't think I'll be attempting another one in a hurry...

before freezing

If you are going to follow this recipe I would recommend that you have the correct size tin, do not use foil, and do not put the cake in the freezer. Click here for the recipe.

I didn't have the correct tin (because I was too fatigued to be bothered tracking one down) so my cake turned out looking ridiculous: square instead of rectangular and with fewer layers as the beautiful one featured on Bakers Royale.

I used foil like the recipe suggested but I really should have stuck with my instincts and gone with baking paper. Peeling that stuff off the bottom of the cake was painful.

I also chose to put my cake in the freezer as I wanted the best chance of creating a pudding texture closer to ice cream like the recipe claimed. Disappointingly I discovered that it hardened too much and was almost too solid to consume on Father's Day. If I was to ever try this recipe again I would try storing the cake in the fridge instead or halve the suggested storage time in the freezer.