Celebrity

‘The Pioneer Woman’: Ree Drummond’s Blackberry Icebox Cake Is an Easy Make-Ahead Summer Dessert

Ree Drummond shared her easy recipe for a delicious make-ahead dessert that's perfect for summer. The Pioneer Woman's blackberry icebox cake uses a couple of store-bought shortcuts so it's a snap to whip up the chilled treat, with the addition of fresh berries and homemade whipped cream.

by Wendy Michaels

Published on July 1, 2021

2 min read

Ree Drummond’s blackberry icebox cake is so easy to make in advance

Drummond leans on a store-bought ingredient for her blackberry icebox cake recipe, which is a huge timesaver when prepping the dessert. “We all know and love icebox cakes and this one uses a frozen pound cake from the supermarket,” she explained while demonstrating the recipe on The Pioneer Woman cooking show.

Drummond started by slicing a thin layer off the top of the cake, then crumbled it and placed the cake bits in a skillet with melted butter to toast for a few minutes. She set them aside to cool while she sliced the remaining pound cake into three layers and made an easy blackberry filling and whipped cream.

“So this cake has delicious layers and I need to make a blackberry layer,” she explained. “I’ve got some really juicy, delicious blackberries,” She cut the berries half and placed them in a bowl then added blackberry jam to the fruit as well as lemon zest and juice, giving everything a stir to combine.

The icebox cake can be made with different fruit layers, if desired

Drummond explained how the cake is versatile since you can use different berries and jam to make the fruit layer if you prefer another fruit or want to switch it up.

“Icebox cakes are basically made with some kind of cake or cookie, some kind of whipped cream mixture, and then some kind of flavor component,” she explained. “So the blackberry mixture is the flavor component for this cake.”

She also made whipped cream by combining heavy cream and powdered sugar in a stand mixer, beating it until firm peaks formed.

Ree Drummond demonstrated how quickly the dessert can be assembled

Assembling the icebox cake is so easy because it’s just layers of the handful of ingredients. Drummond used the foil pan the pound cake came in, placing plastic wrap inside it and draping it over the edges, she explained to “help the cake come out later.”

She placed the first layer of cake in the bottom of the pan, added a third of the blackberry mixture, spooned in some whipped cream, and smoothed it out, then repeated the process with the two remaining slices of cake, ending with blackberry and whipped cream on top.

Drummond wrapped the cake with the plastic wrap that extended over the sides of the pan, covering it loosely and placed it in the refrigerator to chill for 8 hours. Once the cake was fully chilled and set, she used the plastic wrap to lift the cake from the pan. Before slicing it and serving, she sprinkled her toasted cake crumbles over the top as well as garnished with whole blackberries and mint sprigs for a dash of color.

“You would never know we started with a store-bought frozen pound cake,” Drummond said as she tasted her masterpiece. “This is a dream.”