An easy no-bake frozen summer dessert with layers of whipped cream cheese, strawberries, and graham crackers.

A layered icebox cake dessert with graham crackers, strawberries and cream cheese whip on a white plate surrounded by strawberries and slices of cake

Summer Entertaining Favorite

This frozen summer time dessert checks all the boxes for easy entertaining.

You prepare it the day before the party
It requires zero cooking, just whisking, mixing and layering
When you bring it to the table everyone goes, “oh, wow! that is BEAAA-UUU-TIFUL.”

A layered icebox cake dessert with graham crackers, strawberries and cream cheese whip on a white plate surrounded by strawberries and plates

Variations and Substitutions

In theory, you could use any berry or fruit that you like to create this icebox cake. I picked strawberries this time because they were at the peak of season and looked so pretty at the grocery store. I have used blackberries for this recipe before. Peaches would be fantastic, too.

Softened Cream Cheese

You’ll see that the cream cheese is noted as “softened”. The best way to go about this is set the cream cheese out on the counter top a couple hours before you want to make this icebox cake. When it’s softened, it’s super creamy and easily folds into the whipped cream. If it’s not softened, you can end up with cream cheese clumps on your hands.

How to Make Whipped Cream with Heavy Whipping Cream

If you have never made your own whipped cream with heavy whipping cream, you are in for a treat! This is one of my favorite things to do.

All that’s required to make homemade whipped cream is the heavy whipping cream (or heavy cream) and add it to a metallic bowl and whip until it reaches the proper consistency.

The metallic bowl is important because it helps keep the cream cold so that it firms up nicely into whipped cream.

The whipping can be done by hand with a whisk, but I prefer to use the whisk attachment on my stand mixer. You can also use a hand mixer. No matter what you use, continue to whisk and you’ll see the consistency of the cream change from a milky liquid to a fluffy solid.

In this recipe, you’re looking for “stiff peaks” as opposed to “soft peaks.” Stiff just indicates that the cream has been whipped to a point where it firmly holds its shape when the beater is lifted out of the bowl. Soft peaks somewhat collapse after the beater is removed.

But, don’t take your whipping too far because the cream can turn into butter. Unless you wanted to make butter, in which case, rock on. For more help and a step by step visual, check out this video on How to Make Whipped Cream.

Slicing Frozen Desserts

The trick to slicing an icebox cake (and any frozen cake for that matter) is to use a serrated knife and dip it in warm water before each slice. This helps the knife to glide right through the dessert and come out with clean looking slices like this:

and this…