Consider this no-bake dessert the layered cheesecake of your dreams. It's simple to make, but packed with complex flavors -- alternating bites of cookie butter-cream cheese, speculoos cookies (think spiced shortbread meets a biscuit cookie) and apricot preserves. A little extra plastic wrap helps you unmold the cake easily.
- Level: Easy
- Total: 8 hr 30 min (includes chilling time)
- Active: 30 min
- Yield: 6 to 8 servings
Ingredients
1 cup apricot preserves
1/2 cup cookie butter spread
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar, sifted
4 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
2 1/2 cups heavy cream
One 8.8-ounce package speculoos cookies, 2 set aside for garnish (see Cook's Note)
Directions
- Line an 8-by-8-inch baking dish with plastic wrap, leaving about 2 inches of overhang on all sides. Stir together the apricot preserves and 1 tablespoon water in a small bowl. Set aside.
- Combine the cookie butter, sugar and cream cheese in a large bowl and beat with an electric mixer until smooth, about 2 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed. Add the cream and continue to beat, starting on medium speed until the cream and cookie butter mixture are combined and then increasing the speed to medium high, until very stiff peaks form, about 3 minutes.
- Spread a quarter of the cookie butter-cream on the bottom of the prepared baking dish. Evenly dollop with 3 tablespoons of preserves. Arrange 10 cookies on top of the preserves, breaking some up into little pieces to fill in the gaps. Repeat this layering process 2 more times, each time with a quarter of the cookie-butter cream, 3 tablespoons of the preserves and 10 cookies. Make a final cookie butter-cream layer with the remaining mixture. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 8 hours and up to 12. Refrigerate the remaining preserves.
- Once completely chilled, remove the plastic wrap from the top of the icebox cake and invert onto a platter. Remove the rest of the plastic wrap. Lightly crush the reserved cookies and sprinkle on top of the cake. Drizzle the remaining preserves over the cookie crumbles.
Cook’s Note
Speculoos or speculaas cookies are spiced shortbread biscuits; they can be found in specialty food stores or even in the cookie section of your grocery store.
