Easy Icebox Cake

Hi friends! I have missed you (and maybe you've missed me too?!)... It's been over a week since I last posted a recipe! Do forgive me, please. :) I have been creating delicious recipes, I promise. I just haven't found the time to blog about them! I thought I'd share with you here a recipe that I've made twice within the last two weeks. It's that good!! This dessert is called "icebox cake," and I found the recipe on a blog I enjoy, Brown Eyed Baker. The actual recipe I modeled mine after can be found here.

At the very minimum, you can make this dish with just three ingredients. How easy! Hence, the title of this post, "Easy Icebox Cake." ;-) The cool thing about this recipe though is that you can very simply jazz it up if you want to, and you can create it with endless flavors. I love a recipe like this one!

Here are the three basic ingredients:

-graham crackers

-2 boxes instant pudding (any flavor or flavors!)

-cool whip (optional)

Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, it's really four ingredients since you have to use milk to make the instant pudding. Oops! So, four ingredients it is.

As I said earlier, I made this recipe twice in the past couple weeks. The first time I made it was right around St. Patrick's Day, so I chose to use pistachio flavored pudding since it's such a great St. Patty's Day green color! The second occasion for which I made this icebox cake was the early Easter that my family had this past weekend. Our schedules don't allow us to get together on Easter weekend this year, so we celebrated this past weekend at home in NY. I had a pretty busy week last week so I knew I had to make something that wouldn't take much time...

Below are some pictures from my first venture with pistachio pudding, and then you'll see pictures from the Easter dessert creation. I went "all out" and used two different flavored puddings for the Easter one....woah! I know, I'm living on the edge. I'll tell you what those flavors are in a bit when you get to those pics!

Did I mention that this recipe is EASY? All you do is just layer the ingredients and then let the dish sit in the fridge overnight. That is all, folks!

Jake, Mary, and Mike! I brought the pistachio icebox cake to their house when we visited for dinner. :)

Okay, now on to icebox cake #2 (aka early Easter dinner dessert!)... Oh, and by the way, bear with me here. I realize that I am including a lot of pictures with this post, but I just like seeing all the layers and how the whole thing comes together... I'm pretty simple-minded, I know. It doesn't take much to entertain me! Check out the fun ingredients I put into this next one... The possibilities are endless!

Lemon & coconut cream puddings this time - fun combo!

I added bananas on the coconut cream layer - yum! A little extra potassium for this dessert's consumers. ;-)

Time for another graham cracker layer!

And then the lemon pudding layer...

...with blueberries!

Cool whip and fun Easter sprinkles!

Here's a close-up of the sprinkles - can you see the little Easter bunny shapes?

Here you can see the layers, although they're not too "defined." When the dessert sits overnight, the layers seem to meld together a bit...it's quite delicious that way! The graham crackers get a little soft and all the flavors come together nicely.

And finally, here's me! I don't get a chance to have others photograph the "Barbershop" all that often, so my sister was nice enough to take a picture of me with our Easter dessert.

So what other flavors would you include with this dessert? What about a vanilla and chocolate pudding combo? Maybe with some strawberry slices? Mmmm. Oooh, I know...spread some peanut butter on the graham crackers! That'd be really fun to do with chocolate pudding. Tell me your ideas, friends!

Stay tuned 'til next time... I have several other recipes in the line-up! ;-)