Elevated Coconut Cream Lush Recipe

Icebox cakes are a product of the early 20th century when iceboxes, which eventually became refrigerators, became ubiquitous in American homes. The popularity of ice boxes was largely influenced by companies like Nabisco, who printed cake recipes on their boxes calling for no-bake cookie crusts. There was never one correct way to make an icebox cake, but the formula was always the same: crumbly crusts, soft centers, and swirling whipped frosting layers.

The lush is another form of icebox cake, named as such for its endlessly soft, luscious layers. Instead of the cake layer, a lush involves a whipped cream cheese layer and a jammy, fruity layer such as lemon curd, all topped with whipped cream. The result is kind of a dessert lasagna, less like cake in nature and more like a layered mousse. Perfect for summertime, the no-bake dessert is an easy vintage favorite that is designed for non-fussy serving. Usually, it's not a dessert you'd reserve for fancy occasions, but this recipe written with developer Michelle McGlinn turns the regularly shapeless casserole into a work of art. By turning the cream cheese layer into a creamy panna cotta, you create a dessert that tastes more elevated and takes on the unique shape of your serving glass. Topped with a coconut cream layer and a dollop of freshly whipped cream, this elegant lush is still every bit as comforting and nostalgic as your favorite childhood dessert — and believe it or not, requires hardly any more effort, either.

Though the dessert may look intimidating, the ingredient list is surprisingly short, with many of the layers borrowing ingredients from one another. Starting with the base layer, grab graham cracker crumbs, butter, and granulated sugar. From there, add milk, a packet of gelatin, heavy whipping cream, vanilla, and cream cheese to your list. After gathering the ingredients for the first 2 layers, you'll just need a box of instant coconut cream pudding and powdered sugar to finish the remaining 2 layers. Then, just grab toasted shaved coconut for garnish.

Combine the graham cracker crumbs, sugar, and melted butter together until the crumbs are moist.

Press firmly into the bottoms of 4 glasses.

Freeze the crust for 30 minutes.

Add ¼ cup milk to a bowl and sprinkle gelatin on top. Gently stir to combine. Soften for 15 minutes.

In the meantime, add ¼ cup milk, heavy whipping cream, sugar, and vanilla to a saucepan.

Heat, stirring constantly, until the cream begins to scald around the edges. Immediately remove from the heat.

Add the gelatin mixture and the cream cheese and whisk to combine until smooth. Let cool.

Stand the glasses at 45-degree angles using a ramekin and pour ½ cup of the cream cheese mixture into each of the tilted glasses.

Chill for 4 hours, or until completely set.

When ready to add the pudding: Beat the pudding mix into the heavy whipping cream until completely combined and thick.

Pipe ½ cup of the pudding mixture into each of the glasses, smoothing the pudding with a spatula.

Chill the lush for 30 minutes.

Whisk the remaining 2 cups whipping cream, powdered sugar, and vanilla until soft peaks form.

When ready to serve, pipe the whipped cream onto the lush.

Top with shaved coconut to serve.

Panna cotta is sort of like if pudding and jello combined to make one delicious dessert. It's neither creamy like pudding nor firm like jello, instead falling somewhere in between: a spoonable pillowy dessert. Panna cotta is surprisingly easy to make despite its fancy name. The tricky part is adding flavor, and this recipe is especially challenging because the flavor is in the form of cream cheese, a solid, creamy fat. When adding cream cheese into warm cream you have to incorporate it with movement so that the fat globules don't separate into clumps and instead cleanly blend into the cream. In other words, you have to emulsify the components. 

You can do this a few different ways: First, after adding the gelatin to the warm milk (so it will activate), allow the mixture to cool before mixing in the softened cream cheese. With this method, your cream cheese won't be melted by the cream and will need to be very soft to break down. 

If you don't have the time to find this delicate balance between warm enough for the gelatin and cool enough for the cream cheese (or you simply messed it up — been there), you can force the emulsion with a blender. This works with a hand beater, stand blender, or immersion blender. Blend at high speed until the mixture is smooth, but not frothy. If it froths, allow it to rest until the bubbles deflate.

We know it's a little strange for such a sophisticated recipe to include a packaged pudding mix. The truth is, the easiest way to make coconut cream pudding from scratch often still involves artificial flavors like imitation coconut extract, so taking the extra effort to heat the eggs and milk together doesn't necessarily seem worthwhile. It's also worth examining for aesthetic purposes: If you make the pudding with fresh coconut ingredients like milk and coconut cream, it will be a pale yellow-gray color instead of the bright creamy yellow that lush is known for.

If you have experience with scratch-made pudding and don't mind the extra effort, you can definitely make the pudding layer from scratch (or, at least, from a can). To do this, choose whether or not you'll use coconut extract. With extract, simply follow a simple vanilla pudding recipe, replacing the vanilla with coconut extract. For a more involved pudding using real coconut, you'll need to temper eggs and sugar into scalded coconut milk and cream, then whip into pudding with cornstarch and flour. Yes, more scalding, tempering, and whipping — that boxed mix doesn't look so bad after all, now, does it?