Blueberry Shortbread Icebox Cake

Preheat oven to 325º F and grease the bottom of a 3-quart glass baking dish with butter.

In a medium-sized mixing bowl, use a hand mixer to cream the butter. Add powdered sugar, and cream butter and sugar together. Mix in vanilla and almond extracts until smooth.

Add flour to the bowl and work it into the butter mixture with your hands or a spatula until just combined. Take care not to overwork the dough so that you get a flaky shortbread crust.

Gently press the shortbread dough into the greased baking dish so that it evenly coats the bottom of the pan. Use a fork to gently press shallow dots across the top of the crust.

Bake in a 325º F oven for 15–20 minutes. It is done cooking just before it starts to turn golden-brown.

Set the shortbread crust aside to cool. Allow it to completely cool before assembling your icebox cake so that your other layers don’t melt.

Make the blueberry filling while the crust is baking. In a small saucepan, combine 1 cup of washed and stemmed blueberries with sugar. Heat over medium heat and bring to a simmer. Simmer until sugar is completely dissolved and mixture becomes liquid. This will take approximately 5 minutes.

In a bowl, whisk water and cornstarch until there are no lumps. Slowly add cornstarch mixture into the pot of cooked blueberries while stirring continuously so that it is evenly incorporated without any lumps. Cook over medium heat, stirring often, until mixture begins to boil and becomes clear and thick.

Remove from the heat and allow the blueberry sauce to come to room temperature. Once cooled, add additional water until it becomes the consistency of pudding or the fruit gel filling of a doughnut.

Gently mix sauce with remaining washed and stemmed fresh blueberries. Note that it is important to allow the blueberry sauce to completely cool so that the blueberries don’t become mushy and the whipped layers of the dessert don’t melt.

While the crust and blueberry sauce are cooling, make the cream cheese whip. Cream softened Philadelphia cream cheese and powdered sugar until completely combined and free of lumps. Beat in one thawed frozen whipped topping for 3 minutes. Set aside until you are ready to assemble the icebox cake.

Once the crust and sauce are cooled, assemble the icebox cake. Evenly spread cream cheese whip over the shortbread cookie crust. Gently do the same with the blueberry filling over the cream cheese whip. For the final layer, top with thawed frozen whipped topping. To garnish, sprinkle with white chocolate shavings. (They can be made by running a vegetable peeler over a bar of white chocolate.)

Chill for at least 1 1/2 hours in the refrigerator before serving. This dessert keeps in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.