Gateaux1

This Chai Biscuit Cake is a simple no bake dessert with only three ingedients. It’s bursting with delicious flavours of chai spiced honey and cool whipped cream. 

Short on flour or eggs? Maybe you don’t enjoy baking or perhaps you find it a bit intimidating (PS I can also help you bake a delicious cake!). In the summer sometimes it’s way too hot to turn on the oven to bake a cake. Whatever the reason, life’s little celebrations still deserve something special. Instead of buying a cake, construct a No Bake Biscuit Cake! 

What is a Biscuit Cake?

There are a few kinds of biscuit cake floating around on the internet. They are a classic dessert, around since the dawn of time. In general, a biscuit cake is a no bake tea cake made using biscuits and some sort of ‘batter’ that holds them together. The entire cake is constructed, rather than baked into existence. The cake is completed with a variety of attractive outer decorative layers such as chocolate glaze or whipped cream.

Varieties of Biscuit Cake

Biscuit cakes are made around the world! In the UK, chocolate biscuit cakes are prepared by combining melted chocolate and crumbled biscuits into a terrine. Other ingredients such as condensed milk, golden syrup, raw eggs, nuts, glacé cherries, marshmallows, or dried fruit can also be added. Once the terrine has set, the outer layer is coated with a chocolate glaze.

Other varieties use pudding (Jewish Biscuit Cakes) or whipping cream (American or Australian Icebox Cakes) as a batter. Even an Italian Tiramisu could be considered a biscuit cake! 

Where Did the Biscuit Cake Come From?

The simple no bake cake is came from much more extravagant English desserts; the Charlotte or Trifle. However, it’s much easier to prepare and uses fewer ingredients. 

In the 1930’s, the invention of the icebox (refrigerator) in North America led to the popularity of easy no bake desserts such as icebox cakes and jello. 

How to Make a Biscuit Cake

Now for the fun part! To make this cake is as easy as 1-2-3. Step one: Whip up the cream (add the chai honey once the cream has started to thicken) Step two: Slather biscuits with whipped cream and set them up in an alternating pattern (the pattern is up to you!). Cover the cake with a layer of whipped cream. Step Three: Wait overnight for the whipping cream to soften the biscuits. 

The easiest shape to master is the classic log shape. If you are feeling crafty, try for a more intricate shape such as a round (it’s a log that is just curved into a circle!) or a stack, like this No Bake Chocolate Biscuit Cake. 

How to Flavour an Icebox Cake

For this cake, I flavoured the cream with a locally made chai spiced honey. You can use regular honey or add alcohol to the whipped cream to personalize your cake. Folding nuts into the whipped cream would also be a tasty way to add extra oomph to the cake. 

Let’s talk biscuits. This recipe uses Anna’s Ginger Thins from IKEA but you can use any flavour you like. The trick is to find a thin biscuit so that the moisture from the whipping cream softens it overnight. However, be aware that the biscuits are also quite brittle. Always buy an extra box to cover any breakage or losses due to snacking! 

How to Store Chai Biscuit Cake

Once assembled, store the cake in cake tin or on a plate in the fridge covered with a large upside down bowl. Take note of the best before date on the whipping cream. If it’s not expiring soon, you can keep the cake in the fridge for up to 4 days.