Wuh's Ice Box Cake...a Brown Family Favorite

My maternal grandmother, Mildred Hall Brown (the oldest grandchild coined the "grandmother name" for her of "Wuh"), had one desert that the family...at least all of us grandchildren...craved: her chocolate ice box cake. Rather than a cake, it is pieces of angle food cake or lady fingers suspended in a fluffy, airy chocolate mousse (a foam dessert) stabilized in a gelatin base (Jello-like) to form a variant gelatin dessert. A standard-format recipe follows the keepsake recipe by Robert & Cathy. As a special Christmas gift to family in 2007, my first cousin (Robert L. Brown...that first grandchild) & his wife, Cathy Brown, of "Raven's Nest", Stateburg, Sumter Co., S. C.), printed up the following, beautiful keepsake:

The Recipe:

• Ingredients & container:
  1. about half of one 14 ounce angel food cake
  2. 6 tablespoons Hershey's cocao
  3. 1 envelope Knox unflavored, plain gelatin
  4. 1/2 cup cold water
  5. 3 eggs separated
  6. a pinch of salt
  7. 1 teaspoonful of Vanilla
  8. pinch of cream of tartar
  9. 1/2 cup sugar
  10. 1/2 cup boiling water
  11. no less than 8x10x2 inch (& 9x13x2 inch may be too large) setting-up baking pan sprayed with Pam
• Process:
  1. cut or tear angel food cake into pieces and put into pan
  2. dissolve gelatin in cold water & set aside
  3. dissolve sugar and cocao in boiling water & set aside
  4. put pinch of salt in beaten egg yolks & mix and set aside
  5. then add (2) gelatin & (3) cocao mixes to (4) yolks & heat to hot & then off burner & set aside in refrigerator to thicken mildly
  6. add 1 teaspoon vanilla & pinch of cream of tartar to egg whites & beat into meringue peaks & then "fold" meringue into the thickening gel mix (the mix of 2, 3, & 4) & pour mixture over angel food cake pieces in that baking pan
  7. put in refrigerator to set up & solidify
• Serve:
  1. then slice into serving sizes that you desire & spatula onto individual serving plates
  2. if you like (I do!) put whipping cream or Cool Whip over each individual serving

Microwave Alternative: My first cousin (Emily Cain Shuman) and also Wuh's granddaughter has a microwave technique (Em uses a little less sugar & water in the steps to created the chocolate mix):

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(posted 1/18/08; updated 10 November 2016)

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