On a recent Friday in the kitchen of his Oakland home, chef Mike Raskin of the pop-up Edith’s Pie puts the finishing touches on a simple, irresistible summer treat: A cold and creamy lemon icebox pie made by mixing whipped egg yolks, condensed milk, lemon and sugar and chilling it in a graham cracker crust. Yup, that’s about it.
You could say these no-bake or “low-bake” frozen desserts, which originated in the 1920s with the use of iceboxes — compact, non-mechanical refrigerators — are making a comeback. Icebox pies and their layered, cake-like counterparts are popping up on Instagram, in cookbooks and on the menus of trendy pop-ups, like Edith’s. But really, Raskins says, it’s the nostalgia, accessibility and widespread appeal of Americana classics like this one that draws people back to them.
And avoiding the oven on hot summer days is something every generation can get behind.
“Simple, comforting foods always come back,” says Raskin, who sells his lemon and lemon-raspberry icebox pies alongside chef-ier offerings, like sweet corn and blackberry, blood orange cream and grilled pepper quiche, at various spots around Oakland every week. “And it feels to me like a very approachable base line for (making) a pie.”
Raskin, a Berkeley native and graduate of UC Santa Cruz who has cooked in prestigious kitchens from Chicago to Valle de Guadalupe in Mexico, left the savory world in 2019 to start Edith’s Pie, which he now runs with business partner Jeffrey Wright. Edith’s Pie is named after Raskin’s mom, who still makes the best apple pie he’s ever had (awwww). Raskin and Wright are hoping to open an Oakland cafe and bakery by year’s end that will offer pie flights and coffee.
With his fine dining culinary background, Raskin likes to elevate his icebox game a bit beyond the instant pudding and Nabisco wafers of yore. (By definition, icebox cakes are made by layering cookies with a creamy filling and refrigerating the results until the cookies soften and transform into cake-like layers).
For instance, he salts his graham cracker crust to balance the cloying nature of ingredients like sweetened condensed milk. He purees fresh raspberries into his lemon and raspberry icebox, which yields a bold pink color. And he does light up the stove and oven, briefly, to help emulsify his lemony filling and bake the graham crust.
“The sacrifice of heating the house for 20 minutes is that you get this light, creamy texture to your filling,” he says. “And your graham cracker crust gets that caramelized flavor and color.”
Morgan Bolling of America’s Test Kitchen shares the same “take it up a notch” approach to icebox desserts. To make her crowd-pleasing Chocolate Eclair Cake, a classic Southern dessert she learned from an ex’s Deep Run, North Carolina mom, she skips the Jell-O vanilla pudding in favor of a quick stovetop version made with milk, vanilla extract, gelatin and cornstarch. She also uses fresh, homemade whipped cream instead of Cool Whip.
“We use less of the convenience products to make it really delicious and balanced,” says Bolling, who shares the recipe in 2019’s “The Complete Summer Cookbook: Beat the Heat with 500 Recipes that Make the Most of Summer’s Bounty” (America’s Test Kitchen, $33).
Another favorite, Frozen Lemonade Cake, is unabashedly retro, right down to the whipped topping. Swirled lemon curd and Cool Whip are sandwiched between two layers of a lemonade concentrate and vanilla ice cream mixture, which yields Creamsicle-like perfection. Crushed animal crackers provide the crust, and brushed-on yellow food coloring gel gives the top a modern flourish.
Cookie type matters, by the way. Steer clear of buttery, high-fat or sugary cookies when building an icebox cake, Bolling advises.
“There’s a reason people use graham crackers or something like animal crackers,” she says. “It’s about sugar level and dryness. You want to strike a balance.”
Raskin and Bolling agree that the biggest tip for icebox success is to chill that dessert long enough, at least four hours. If you’re making a cake and doing graham cracker layers, like the Chocolate Eclair Cake, using a loaf or other rectangular pan and building careful, even layers will help yield clean slices. So will a warm knife. Dip it in warm water, quickly wipe it and slice. Repeat.
And if your slices are sloppy or the layers blend together, does it really matter? Icebox cakes are supposed to be unfussy and fun, which is what summer is all about.
“They get a reputation as being old-fashioned but they’re just so lovely,” Bolling says. “They’re cold and refreshing. And there’s something really fun about sharing them with others.”
