It's About To Go Down: Key Lime Cake

 

Saturday night I walked downstairs into my kitchen and said to my Mom, "Betty Crocker's in the building!"  I wish I could find the image of Beyonce walking into her last tour with the sequin outfit when she tousles her hair because that's how my entrance was or like this.  EPIC!  Okay but on a serious note, for the Superbowl I agreed to bake a cake for my Dad's "party."  I decided on key lime cake for two reasons:  1.)  The first time I made it back in 2009 it was an epic failure!  I bought the wrong type of lime jello.  I got excited and tried taking it out of the pan BEFORE it cooled down resulting in it falling apart.  Plus it was overcooked.  God bless my boyfriend at the time for saying it was good as he worked his way around the burned edges.  2.)  The last time I bought some from a restaurant my Mom decided to eat it without consulting with me.  So here we are, baking a cake, and ish.


Cake Ingredients
1 Box of Lemon Cake Mix (Duncan Hines Lemon Supreme for me.)
3 oz. Box of Lime Jello Mix
3 Large Eggs
1-1/3 Cups Milk
1/3 Cup Vegetable Oil
3.5 oz. Box of Instant Vanilla Pudding Mix

Lemon Flavored Cream Cheese Icing
8 oz. of Cream Cheese
1 LB Confectioners Sugar 10x Powdered
1/2 Cup Butter Softened
1 Teaspoon Lemon Flavor

Garnish
1 or 2 Crushed Graham Crackers

The first thing you need to do is preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Now since this is a key lime cake you'll need a box of lemon cake mix.  I used Duncan Hines Lemon Supreme.

Add a 3 oz. box of lime jello mix and make sure it's not sugar free because I made that mistake before only to discover sugar free jello contains less.  You're going to add three large eggs to your mix.  I usually like to let my eggs sit out through the day just to have them at room temperature, but this is optional.  For whatever brand of cake mix you use I'm sure it requires water, substitute that for milk.  It helps make the cake a lot more moist in my personal opinion.  Plus you'll be adding that 3.5 oz box of instant vanilla pudding which helps make the cake nice and dense.*  Finally add 1/3 cup of vegetable oil.

*I had actually forgot to add my pudding mix after blending ALL of the other ingredients and noticed how runny it was.  As soon as I added the pudding mix it was nice and thick.

Use a blender and beat your cake mix until it's nice and smooth.  It will turn a nice green color from the lime jello mix.

Next up for whatever pans you bake it make sure you coat the bottom and sides with vegetable oil and all-purpose flour so your cake doesn't stick.  Trust me it will crush your heart to see a beautiful cake come out the oven and it won't come out of the pan.  I used two 9-inch pans for mine.  I made sure to spread my batter out by using a wooden spoon and making sure it wasn't uneven up top.

The box recommended cooking the cake for 28-31 minutes when using pans this size.  I checked mine at 20 minutes with a fork by sticking a fork in the center.  It came out with batter on it still so I cooked it an additional 5 minutes.  I've discovered that cooking cakes the full recommended time isn't the best thing, but everyone's oven works differently so just make sure the fork comes out clean.

Next up lemon flavored cream cheese icing!

My assistant in the background!

This is actually simple so no worries and no need for store bought icing!  You'll need a 1 lb. box of 10x confectioners sugar 10x powdered, 8 oz box of cream cheese, 1/2 cup (1 stick) of softened butter, and 1 teaspoon lemon flavor.  Once again we'll be using our blender to mix all of the ingredients until they're well blended and smooth.

What I have learned with homemade icing is you DO NOT put it on your cake the day you make it.  It will start to melt and become runny.  Therefore we refrigerated it overnight.

The next day I took two graham crackers, placed them in a plastic sandwich bag, and crumbled them up.  This is optional but I just feel like it's not key lime cake without graham crackers.  I decided to place mine on the top of the cake.  If you really wanted the crackers nice and crumbled put them in the blender.

When I returned home from work the majority of my cake was gone so I didn't get a nice pretty picture of it, but the one at the beginning of this post is what it looks like on the inside.  Enjoy!