Mini Blackberry Lavender & Lemon Icebox Cake

Summer can often feel too humid, too hot and too busy to fit in a meal. Here it’s been in the 90’s for weeks and the humidity has been intense. You start sweating the second you walk out the door, and this far north the bright sun doesn’t set until 10 p.m. – which is a summer bonus after the long Northern winter.

However, all this sunny, hot weather doesn’t make me feel like spending a lot of time in the kitchen with a hot stove. We’ve been keeping meals simple. We’ve been grilling a lot and looking for alternatives to our favorite dishes – like Gazpacho for this soup loving girl.

And dessert? Ice cream and popsicles are on the menu most nights. However, there are nights when you need a little something extra special. We’ve had very limited entertaining this summer with the pandemic. But we’re finally going to start seeing some friends again outside and I couldn’t be more excited to share these Blackberry Lavender & Lemon Icebox Cakes with them!

I know it’s a bit of a mouthful – and on top of that long name I made them mini cakes – but these homemade Blackberry Lavender & Lemon Icebox Cakes are so delicious and perfect for those hot days. It looks fancy but it honestly doesn’t take a lot of effort, even to make the jam.

Icebox Cake Recipe History

The icebox cake is a dessert that’s similar to a trifle. In fact, many times people will interchange the names. Even though these Blackberry Lavender & Lemon Icebox Cake has homemade ingredients, the popularity rose in the 1930s when companies began promoting the icebox as a kitchen appliance.

The popularity of this dish actually gave rise to products like condensed milk and wafer cookies. Later variations of the dessert started adding in graham crackers, pudding, vanilla wafers, bananas and pineapple. Today, there’s probably a million combinations you can make for an icebox cake dessert.

Inspiration from everywhere

While I was making the video for this icebox cake recipe my camera man asked me how I come up with my recipes. The answer is, it’s different for each recipe and it depends on if I’m cooking or baking. But, generally I’m inspired by someone or something. Sometimes it’s a dish we eat out at a restaurant, sometimes I’m inspired by photos in magazines or on Pinterest and sometimes it’s just what my taste buds want that day.

This recipe for mini Blackberry Lavender & Lemon Icebox Cakes was inspired by my friend Justin Chapple who is the Culinary Director-At-Large for Food and Wine Magazine. He posted a piece of his from the summer issue of Food and Wine that featured pineapple soft serve ice cream. For some reason, I thought those were icebox cakes and the idea to have mini icebox cakes was created.

From there, I had a taste for blackberries and lemon. It was still May when I created this idea and then we shot it in mid-June so berry season was really in full effect. I decided to add in some lavender to really make these mini Blackberry Lavender & Lemon Icebox Cakes special.

Flowery flavors

Generally, I don’t love flowery flavors in my food. Many times, I feel like I’m eating soap. But, this is an exception!

There’s only two teaspoons of lavender used in this recipe and I use it in the jam. It cooks down and mingles with the blackberry flavor and a little bit of acid from the lemon juice. Instead of feeling overpowering, you have a light lavender flavor that mingles well with the bright citrus and the deeper flavor of the cooker blackberries.

Whether I use the jam for this recipe or just eat it on bread, the flavor is beautiful, soft and delicious.

You can usually find cooking lavender in higher-end grocery stores. If all else fails, I was able to find it at Penzeys Spices. Or, you could grow it too. Just make sure it’s the kind you can cook with.

The serving size

To make these cakes you need to have individual serving glasses. But, you could also make this as one big cake in a cake pan or in a large, glass serving bowl. I made them mini because I liked the idea of individual servings. That said, two people could actually share these glasses. My husband and I did. My 5-year-old son ate about half of it all on his own.

If you want to make mini cakes like I did, you can find perfect glasses for that {HERE}. Mine are a few years old so not available anymore, but if I were buying today I think these would be perfect.

If you want to make one large cake, something like this {HERE} is beautiful. We We have this and it really shows off the dessert in a gorgeous way. We’ve used it a lot over the years. You just might need to make a double recipe to fill it.

You can also use something as simple as this Pyrex baking dish. I love these {HERE} because they’re easy to transport and almost everyone has one in their kitchen. If you don’t have one that will work, you can find some nice, deep ones with lids {HERE}.

Blackberry Lavender Jam                                           

To make the mini Blackberry Lavender & Lemon Icebox Cakes you want to start by making the jam. The jam needs some time to cool because you don’t want it to be warm when adding it to the cheesecake-like filling.

I do not use pectin in my jam so it tends to be a bit runnier than those made with pectin or a jam that you might find in the store. However, I’m fine with that. This jam will keep for about a month in the refrigerator in an airtight container. If you actually can it, it will keep longer.

Icebox cake filling

Cheesecake is one of my favorite desserts. I love cheese and cheesecake just feels like a dreamy, creamy extension of that love. The mini Blackberry Lavender & Lemon Icebox Cake cheesecake-like filling in these is by far one of my favorite fillings for icebox cake. It has a light lemony flavor and pairs perfectly with the other flavors in this dessert.

The cake in icebox cake

For my “cake” in the icebox cake, I used Nilla Wafers. I generally would make something to use but honestly, I didn’t want to overcomplicate this dessert. The Nilla Wafer was literally invented for icebox cake and it was the perfect “cake” for these mini Blackberry Lavender & Lemon Icebox Cake.

You can also use actually piece of cake, graham crackers and cookies. The idea is that you leave this in the refrigerator for a few hours (or even overnight) and the ingredient that you used for the cake will soak up some of the juice from the filling ingredients – turning it into a sponge-like cake.

You can find my full, printable recipe for the mini Blackberry Lavender & Lemon Icebox Cakes below. You can find other farmhouse desserts by clicking {HERE}.

Thank you so much for visiting today, friends! I hope that you’ll come back again and see what else we have happening on the farm.

Blackberry Lavender & Lemon Icebox Cake

These Blackberry Lavender & Lemon Icebox Cakes are the perfect summer dessert. They're delicious and unique. A dessert people will remember.

5 from 12 votes

Print Pin Rate

Course: Dessert

Keyword: Blackberry Lavender & Lemon Icebox Cake, icebox cake

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 20 minutes

Servings: 6

Author: Rachel

Equipment

• Pan for cooking the jam
• Hand mixer
• Bowl for mixing
• Bowl or glasses for preparing the cake

Ingredients

Ingredients for the jam

• 6 cups of fresh or frozen blackberries I use frozen
• 1 cup of honey
• 1 Tbsp. Lemon juice
• 2 tsp. of dried lavender, crushed

Cheesecake-like filling ingredients

• 16 oz of cream cheese, softened
• 1 1/4 cup powdered sugar
• 1/4 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice
• 2 cups of heavy whipping cream
• 2 tsp. of vanilla
• Zest of 2 lemons

Cake Ingredients

• 1-2 boxes of Nilla Wafers, crushed

Whipping cream Ingredients

• 2 cups of heavy whipping cream
• 3/4 cup powdered sugar
• 1/2 Tbsp. vanilla extract

Optional Toppings

• Fresh blackberries
• Lemon zest
• Mint leaf

Instructions

Jam Instructions

• Heat a pan on the stovetop on low and add your blackberries, honey, lemon juice and lavender. Mix and continuously crush the blackberries.
• Turn heat up to medium and let the mixture start to boil. Continue to crush the blackberries so they are dissolved and the chunks are smaller. Don't turn the heat above medium. Keep stirring to keep your ingredients from burning.
• Let the mixture simmer for about 10 minutes.
• Remove from heat and let it cool.
• Add it to an airtight container and refrigerate. As the mixture gets colder, it will come together more. If you make this the day before it will be perfect by the time you want to make the dessert. Give it at least an hour to chill in the fridge.

Filling Instructions

• Combine your powdered sugar, softened cream cheese, lemon juice, lemon zest, heavy cream and vanilla extract in a bowl. Blend with a hand mixture until it's nice and smooth.
• Chill for one hour.
• While the cheesecake-like mixture is chilling, crush your Nilla Wafers. I've found it's easiest to add them to a plastic bag and crush them or use a potato masher in a bowl.

Whipped Cream Instructions

• Combine your heavy whipping cream, powdered sugar and vanilla. Whip with a hand mixer for about 10 minutes. Chill until you're ready to use it.
• NOTE: Wait until about 30 minutes before serving to make the whipped cream.

Building the cake

• Start building by adding a layer of Nilla Wafers, the add the cream cheese filling, then add a layer of the jam. Keep layering until you reach the top. You can see how I made it work when I reached the top in the video above.
• Add this to the refrigerator for at least one hour before serving. You can also make this in the morning or the day before and chill it overnight.
• Add your whipping cream right before serving. Add additional toppings as desired.

Video