Vintage Recipe Redux: 1920s Saltine Margarita Icebox Cake

I'm using the Devil's own tequila. What could go wrong?

Texas Monthly has a recipe out this past week that really piqued my interest — Margarita pie with a saltine crust, by Paula Forbes. As the recipe says, it’s alllllmost no-bake, but the crushed saltines need a bit of baking so the crust will hold together. This crust idea is entirely new to me, and I think it’s brilliant, but I really, really don’t want to turn on the oven.

So, I took a look back on something my grandmother used to make from time to time: icebox cakes.

They’re not totally unlike trifle, which has been around for a very long time, but trifles are less structured and more likely to have layers of a lot of varied ingredients, like gelatin, pudding, and fresh fruit. Their real precursor, the ice cream cake, came to prominence in the late 1800s, when the height of luxury was something frozen, but they were only available at very fancy shindigs. In the 1920s and 30s, when refrigerators became more affordable for the average Joe and were powered by electricity instead of literal ice in a box, there was a proliferation of “icebox” recipes — things you could make just by leaving them to chill a bit. Since air conditioning was still uncommon, one can imagine the appeal of no-cook recipes in summertime. Jell-O salads were one such iteration of course, but there were also desserts with stale cake, ladyfingers, wafers, or cookies layered with whipped cream of some kind, and left to soften into an almost unified whole…no oven required. A lot of the early recipes were from refrigerator manufacturers looking to sell more appliances — you can see a couple of examples in this little history from NPR. There’s also a great collection from the Great Depression here.

The earliest appliance company recipe booklet I have is from Frigidaire, and I estimate it’s from the 1950s. Icebox cakes were a bit out of favor by then, maybe because they had become so common, or maybe because this hideous grape jelly, Ritz cracker and Cool Whip recipe took things a step too far. There’s only one chocolate example in this booklet — more copy space is devoted to how to make ice cubes, for people who had never had an electric fridge before.

What I want, though, is key lime. The only vintage lime icebox cake recipe I can find is this one, from Borden condensed milk, but I’m just not in the mood for raw eggs.

Instead, I’m going to combine the Margarita and saltine idea from Texas Monthly with Kenji Lopez-Alt’s own vintage-inspired icebox cake, which uses condensed milk and heavy cream. So, I’m using the following ingredients to wing it a little bit.

In pondering the final effect I’d like to achieve, I’m remembering the best cake I’ve ever had — the jalapeño carrot cake at The Cove in San Antonio. I don’t think they make it any more, maybe because I was one of perhaps 2 people at a big table that liked it, but I really, really liked it.

I’m also thinking of the jalapeño sauvignon blanc I tried for TODAY several weeks ago. So, I’ve chosen a little bit of a wild card for the tequila — Cuervo’s Devil’s Reserve. I’m not sure how they manage the flavor, but it has a bright green pepper scent along with pineapple and of course hot chile notes, just like the jalapeño sauvy b.

I mixed 6 oz of Neufchatel (you can think of it as a lighter cream cheese) with a little of the sweetened condensed milk until it was smooth, and then added the rest of the can. Next, 1/4 c of fresh key lime juice, and 2 tsp of zest. In Lopez-Alt’s recipe, the cream isn’t whipped, but I want to lighten the texture a bit, and I added 3 c of whipped cream. Lastly, 2 T of the devil’s own tequila.

I lined a loaf pan with parchment, because I’m hoping to turn this out to serve, as in days of old, when dishes like frozen fruit salad were a thing. You can make this easy on yourself (well, let’s be honest and say not easy but easier) by turning the pan over, pinch-creasing around the outlines of the bottom, cutting a rectangle around that leaving enough extra to go up the sides of the pan, and then making 4 cuts at the edges inward to your creases, in line with the ends of the pan and all running in the same direction. It’ll fold in like magic — just run a finger along the inside corners to make it fit tightly.

Assembling any icebox cake is easy-peasy, too. Just spread some filling in the bottom, and then a layer of cookies or crackers, alternating until you’re out of filling. Cover and chill for at least 8 hours or overnight. The final texture depends a lot on what kind of cookie or cracker you have in there, and how long it sits. Since saltines don’t have a buttery coating like Ritz, I expect them to soften quite a bit. We’ll see how it goes…

Okay, I’ve had it in the freezer overnight to help me unmold it, but both sugar and acid interfere with freezing. Even though it lifted out of the pan in a solid block after a few hours of chilling and didn’t bend, I’m not optimistic.

And yep, it stuck to the paper quite a bit. There’s no way to make it look really nice, but whipped cream garnishes help a little. That’s often the case with retro recipes — food styling was sometimes elaborate, but even so, it will look unsophisticated to modern eyes. If you try making something similar, I suggest putting in pretty unlined dish for spooning out, or still lining with parchment, but just lifting out without inverting so that you can portion and serve it.

You can see the layers a bit here:

Let’s try slicing! Again, not optimistic.

Oh, actually that went rather well. It reminds me of a disapproving muppet. As for transferring to the plate, I was similarly dubious, but except for some sticky fingers, it went just fine.

Let’s try eating! I’m not sure whether to be optimistic or not. It smells like the devil, but in this case, maybe that’s a good thing.

Mmmmm. I love this. Love love love. However, it’s going to be polarizing along a number of spectra. Some people will not like the tequila. Some people will not like the Devil’s Reserve tequila. Some will not like the dry spots left in the saltines as opposed to the way the old Nabisco wafers used to soften entirely, or conversely they’ll think it needs actual crunch instead of a kind of wet matzoh effect. Some will think it too sour, too bitter, too salty…

I think it’s perfect. My hat is off and my hand over my heart for Paula Forbes, who wrote the original marg and saltine pie recipe for Texas Monthly. What a stroke of genius, and right up my alley.

If you can’t bear to turn on the oven even a little bit, though, it’s vintage recipes to the rescue.

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