I was so excited to bake this cake, especially after seeing this picture. A green cake! How cool and interesting! What a talking point! I was sure my kids would love to eat a green cake, too. It seemed so Dr Seussian.
Anyway, yes. The recipe comes from this site, which apparently originally appeared on All Recipes. (verily, it is the Mecca of recipes everywhere) The recipe is reproduced from the Yum Sugar site, not All Recipes.
The Recipe
Ingredients
Here’s the recipe:
1 (18.25 ounce) package lemon cake mix
1 1/3 cups vegetable oil
4 eggs
1 (3 ounce) package lime flavored gelatin mix
3/4 cup orange juice
1/2 cup butter
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese
3 tablespoons fresh lime juice
4 cups confectioners’ sugar
Directions
Combine cake mix, gelatin mix, oil, eggs and orange juice. Pour into three 8-inch cake pans. Bake according to instructions on box. Allow to cool, then frost.
To make the frosting: In a large bowl, beat the butter and cream cheese until light and fluffy. Add lime juice and confectioners sugar. Mix well.
My Alterations
I ran into a snag from the very beginning. On the surface, the recipe seems very simple and easy. It’s basically just a tarted up boxed cake, so it shouldn’t go wrong. Sadly, being in England and all, things went wrong early on. The lemon cake mix was four ounces lighter than what the recipe called for, but I was hopeful. Four ounces isn’t all that much, after all.
I also found it difficult to find powdered lime jell-o. What I ended up with to replace it was this:
A box of brick-like, already gelatin-ized jell-o/jelly:
The only way I could mix that stuff into a cake was by melting it:
I thought I had a genius plan! It was bound to succeed! Alas, no. the jelly didn’t colour the cake batter much at all. I was left with a slightly greenish tinted cake mix, and nothing more. In desperation, I zested a lime into the batter (and we all know how much I hate grating things, right?), which didn’t actually give it a green glow, but made the cake taste more limey. So it wasn’t a total loss, I guess.
Also, in my rush through the grocery store this morning to buy ingredients, I grabbed a box of orange juice drink rather than pure orange juice. Dangit! The cake would have been much more tangy if I had used the real stuff, but by the time I noticed my mistake it was too late.
The Results
Although these set backs were a disappointment, I really regret trying to make the icing. Firstly, the recipe amounts were ridiculously huge given the size of the cake. I ended up with a coffee cup full of left over icing. Also, FOUR CUPS of confectioner’s sugar? Really? I used about two cups and started gagging at the sweetness of it. I couldn’t bring myself to use any more sugar, and that meant that the icing was more of a thick glaze than a creamy icing. If you want to make icing for this cake, I highly recommend halving the recipe amounts and going for a glaze. The appeal of this cake is it’s limey tartness, and too much sugar just saps that right out of it.
The cake itself was very moist and a bit chewy. It was very easy to whip up, given the right ingredients!
The Verdict
This recipe was difficult to make correctly because of my problems with finding the right ingredients over here. I used my usual method of ‘make do and see what happens’, but when aiming to make such a dramatic cake, a sub-par version is a disappointment. It has a good taste, but I would have preferred a stronger lime flavour. Perhaps the recipe could be improved by using actual lime juice in the mix and reducing the amount of orange juice.
I would probably forgo the icing altogether, or just make a simple glaze from confectioners sugar and lime juice, with none of the butter or cream cheese. I don’t like my cakes to be overpowered by the icing, and this icing tasted too strong to me.
If I had the correct ingredients, I would definitely attempt this cake again. I wanted a green cake, dern it!
The Rating
3/5
I admit, my rating is slightly biased because of the lack of greenness in my cake. Simple pleasures, simple disappointments, I guess! The cake didn’t taste limey enough to me, but I think that the recipe could be very easily altered to improve that.
Not bad, but not the best.
Point of Interest: I gave half this cake to a friend, and her kids demolished it. My kids enjoyed it as well, so that is a point in its favour!
