This gorgeous Strawberry Icebox Cake is made with low carb, grain-free chocolate wafer cookies. The ultimate summertime dessert goes keto. THM friendly.
I am going to confess to something of a pet peeve here. You know those recipes that say “only 4 ingredients!”? Those recipes often irritate me. I am not against easy or uncomplicated recipes as a whole, but in many cases, it strikes me as false advertising. I probably wouldn’t have batted an eye at them a few years ago, when I didn’t have to consider my own ingredients so carefully. But now I see that for most of these recipes, there are far more ingredients than actually advertised. Because the ingredients themselves often contain a number of other ingredients. Ingredients that I can’t eat, like sugar and wheat. So when a recipe description says “so easy, only 4 ingredients”, I think to myself “well, so easy for you! If I want to make it, I am going to have to the cookies for that cookie tart crust from scratch!”. The same recipes often bill themselves as “no bake” as well, and that’s only because someone else has done the baking for them, in some factory far away. Again, if I want to make it, I am going to have to turn on the oven and do some baking.
This may seem awfully grumpy of me, and I swear I don’t begrudge my fellow food bloggers and recipe developers the ability to use store bought cookies in their no-bake crusts. It’s just that I come at this from a completely different perspective now. Things I used to take for granted, like store bought cookies and breads, are simply no longer an option. And in so many ways, this is a huge blessing, because the foods I eat and the ingredients I use to make them are far healthier and less processed. But it’s made me a tad more sensitive to the “easy recipe” label, and made me realize that easy isn’t necessarily a good thing. Not if it means the recipe contains ingredients I don’t want my loved ones to consume. If I want to make a comparable recipe, I have to go old school and make the cookies from scratch with my own low carb, gluten-free ingredients. I’m okay with this, but I do have to consider the time and effort involved.
So you won’t see me selling this low carb strawberry icebox cake as “easy, with only a few ingredients”. It wasn’t easy and it contains well over 10 ingredients. But it is most certainly worth the effort, and once the low carb chocolate wafer cookies are baked, it is really is quite easy to throw together. The cookies themselves aren’t overly difficult and can be made a day or two in advance of when you want to serve the cake. It’s an impressive summertime dessert and a great way to showcase strawberries when they are in season. And I guarantee you that your guests won’t be able to distinguish this from the version made with store bought cookies. I served this at a backyard barbecue and every guest gobbled it up and said how fantastic it was and that they wouldn’t have known it was sugar or gluten-free if I hadn’t told them. The empty plates, with every crumb gone, were high-praise indeed. I am insanely proud of this one!
Low Carb Chocolate Strawberry Icebox Cake
Ingredients
Chocolate Wafers:
- 3 ½ cups almond flour
- ⅔ cup cocoa powder
- ½ cup Swerve Sweetener or other granulated erythritol
- 2 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 2 large eggs slightly beaten
- ¼ cup butter melted
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¼ teaspoon stevia extract
Filling:
- 2 ½ cups whipping cream
- ¼ cup powdered Swerve Sweetener or other powdered erythritol
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 ½ cups strawberries hulled and thinly sliced
- ½ ounce sugar-free dark chocolate for garnish
Instructions
- For the wafers, preheat the oven to 300F and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
- In a large bowl, combine almond flour, cocao powder, erythritol, baking powder and salt. Add in eggs, butter, vanilla and stevia and stir well until dough comes together.
- Roll out dough between two pieces of parchment paper to about ⅛ inch thickness. Lift off top piece of parchment and set aside. Using a 2 ¾ inch diameter cookie cutter, cut out circles of dough and use a knife or offset spatula to loosen and lift gently. Place cookies on prepared baking sheet. Gather up scraps of dough and reroll until too little is left to roll out. You should get about 50 cookies.
- Bake cookies until firm to the touch, about 30 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool. They will crisp up as they cool.
- For the filling, whip cream, powdered erythritol and vanilla extract until it forms semi-stiff peaks (somewhere between soft peaks and stiff peaks, don't overbeat but you want it to holds its shape).
- To assemble the cake, use at least a 9-inch cake stand or plate.
- Place one wafer in the center of the plate and 6 wafers in a circle around it. Spread about ½ cup whipped cream carefully over the wafers and top with sliced berries.
- Repeat with remaining wafers, whipped cream and berries until you have completed 7 layers of wafers.
- Top with any remaining cream (you should have plenty) and sliced berries in a decorative fashion.
- Using a cheese slicer, shave chocolate over top.
- Refrigerate and let firm up, about 3 hours.
Robert Campbell says
Made this tonight – icebox cake (log shape) is my wife’s favorite thing! Since Nabisco doesn’t make wafers any more and I am doing KETO this is a GREAT substitute. I’m no baker, but I managed to get this done, and not too bad if I do say so myself! Will make again, just for the chocolate wafers! Thanks for sharing!