Lemon Icebox Cake from Fine Cooking Magazine, June/July 2010

In 2004 someone said this about making an icebox cake in the Washington Post; "It's absurdly simple -- just sweetened whipped cream and the chocolate wafers." Apparently, the original recipe is on the box of Nabisco chocolate wafers. If Fine Cooking had used a recipe with chocolate, I probably wouldn't have made the cake because I'm not a chocolate fan and the last Classic/Classic Update challenge that I did was the Southern Devil's Food Cake and the Devil's Food Cake Verrine. Both were wonderful, but both had lots of chocolate.

However, Fine Cooking's version of an icebox cake includes an angel food cake and a lemon filling. How was I supposed to know that the magazine would take something "absurdly simple" and turn it into the hardest dessert I've ever made in my life; the Lemon Icebox Cake.

I actually started this yesterday since I was having company today and knew that the cake needed to sit in the refrigerator at least 12 hours. My husband and daughter were out of the house, which gave me the perfect time for what I knew was going to be a long baking experience (the recipe in the magazine runs for 2 pages).

The most important item for this recipe (in my opinion) is the angel food cake pan. I looked all over the stores around me for a pan that wasn't non-stick but wasn't able to find an aluminum one (like my mom has) so I ended up going on eBay and getting one for $4. The angel food cake needs to be able to "walk" up the side of the pan as it expands, needing a "sticky" edge to cling to. Because of that, non-stick pans will cause the cake to not rise as much as it should. In fact, I was really surprised that Fine Cooking's instructions included lightly greasing the inside of the pan. I didn't do that and my cake rose just about to the top of the tube (and I didn't have any problems getting it out).

Anyhow, because this recipe uses angel food cake, lemon curd and meringue, a lot of eggs are needed. There are about 16 egg whites in the cake, 12 egg yolks in the lemon curd and 6 egg whites in the meringue. If you're counting, yes, you end up with 10 egg yolks to make a nice omelet with at some point. My husband thought I as nuts when I bought 3 dozen eggs the other day. I guess now he knows why.

The first step is the lemon curd. I'll be the first to admit that sometimes I skip steps, but I really wanted this cake to turn out well so I followed every one to the letter this time. I'm glad I did too. After heating the curd, I was asked to pass it through a sieve into another bowl. Normally I would have rolled my eyes at this "needless" step since I knew my curd wasn't lumpy, but I got out my sieve and did the passing. After I was finished, I kind of went, "huh." What I didn't realize until then was that no matter how hard you try, it's impossible to get all the egg white off the yolk and as it cooks, it gets white and hard. I ended up with quite a few little cooked egg white pieces in my sieve that I'm so glad weren't in the finished curd.

The curd needs about an hour to cool before doing anything with it, so while it was do so, I went ahead and made the angel food cake. I watch Alton Brown on the Food Network on occasion and have heard over and over about using three bowls when separating eggs so NO egg yolk gets in the whites because the whole thing could fail if even the tiniest speck of fat get in there. So, of course, You crack the white over bowl one. If you're successful, the whites go in bowl two and the yolk goes in bowl three. That way if a yolk breaks, you the whole mess of whites aren't contaminated. Great idea, huh.

So I had my two bowls out and was merrily splitting up the eggs, when I had a yolk break on about egg number 12. There was no way I was going to throw out a dozen egg whites so I used a small ladle and tried to remove all the bits of yellow I could see, which is really difficult when you're working with something that has the consistency of snot. Either Alton was wrong or when you're dealing with 16 eggs whites you're given a little grace because I got great stiff peaks out of my egg whites (thank goodness).

The rest of the cake process went fine so while the cake was in the oven, I finished up turning the lemon curd into a lemon cream and then started in on the meringue. In this version, you work with a very hot syrup that can raise immediate blisters if you're not really careful and splash it on your hand. Trust me, I know. The scorching hot syrup is beat into the stiff egg whites. The step to be careful with is making sure to keep beating the whites because the syrup drops to the bottom of the pan and tries to solidify right away. They way to beat for approximately 10 minutes. You really need to.

Anyhow, meringue gets mixed into lemon cream and you end up with the lemon filling for the cake. That process took me about 4 hours.

Assembling the cake is a piece of cake compared to the process above. It takes a bit of care to cut the cake into 4 pieces, removing the top so a brown layer doesn't show when you cut into it, but other than that, it's just a matter of spread, layer, spread, layer.

This afternoon I was able to unveil the final product to my guests and the results were overwhelming. Several people said that it was the best cake they'd ever eaten and my husband said it might be the best dessert I've ever made. It really is phenomenal. The cake ends up light and airy and the lemon filling is absolutely out of this world.

Before I ate a piece, I swore I'd never make the cake again because it took so long, however, after eating it, it won't be something I make every weekend, but I'll have to make it again. It's just too good not to.