When Life Gives You Lemons…

When life gives you lemons, you should probably find the vodka & throw a party.  But if you’d rather skip on the cocktails, the next best thing would be to make THIS cake.  I found this recipe in the mecca of all recipe boxes…Pinterest, of course.  I knew I had to try it out when I saw how EASY it looked to make.  Since we decided to throw a little family birthday party {for my oldest} this past weekend, I knew it would be the PERFECT time to try it out!  I can’t keep anything sweet in the house on a regular basis because I have ZERO willpower and I would be way too tempted to eat every.single.morsel.  Thankfully, the good ol’ fam helped me make a huge dent in the cake and there’s still a little leftover for me to savor…for the next couple of hours, anyway ;)

LEMONADE CAKE with LEMON CREAM CHEESE FROSTING

recipe via Cookies & Cups

For the cake:

1 lemon boxed cake mix

4 eggs

1 1/4 cup milk

1/3 cup vegetable oil

2 tbsp. frozen lemonade {from concentrate}

For the glaze:

2 tbsp. frozen lemonade {from concentrate}

1 cup powdered sugar

1 tbsp. water

For the icing:

1 pkg {8 oz.} 1/3 less fat cream cheese

1 stick {1/2 cup} butter, room temperature

3 tbsp. frozen lemonade {from concentrate}

1/2 tsp. vanilla

5 1/2 cups powdered sugar

 

Not too many ingredients.  Just enough to put you into a tangy, diabetic shock.

Before prepping the cake mix, preheat your oven to 350 & grease your cake pans.  In a large bowl, mix together the dry cake mix, eggs, milk, vegetable oil, & frozen lemonade with a mixer.  Beat the ingredients on low for about 30 seconds and then speed it up and mix for another 2 minutes.  Pour an even amount of cake batter into both pans and bake according to package directions.  My cakes were ready to go after about 30 minutes.

Remove the cakes from the oven and allow to cool for at least an hour.  Warning:  during this waiting period, you will be extremely tempted to take a bite, for quality check purposes of course.  Remind yourself that no one will know the difference and go ahead and take a little bite…or two.  Once the cakes are cooled, level off the tops.  And then eat them while no one’s looking.

Use a fork to poke holes in the part of the cake that you didn’t cut off.  Now it’s time for the glaze.  Mix together the frozen lemonade, powdered sugar, and water until it’s smooth.  Pour an equal amount of the glaze over both cakes. 

DO NOT REMOVE FROM PANS!!!! 

Now you’ll wanna take your press & seal wrap and cover the cakes.  I would recommend using Saran Wrap, but we broke up years ago.  We don’t get along AT.ALL.  But I digress…  Cover the cakes and pop ‘em in the fridge and let ‘em cool for AT LEAST an hour.  I hear that it’s best to let these sit in the fridge overnight, but I was working with a limited time frame, so I refrigerated them for the hour suggested. 

While your cakes are in the fridge, get the icing ready.  In a large bowl, mix together the cream cheese, butter, frozen lemonade, vanilla, and powdered sugar.  Beat ingredients until the mixture is smooth.  Remove the cake pans from the fridge and ice.  Of course, I like a lot of icing so I spread a copious amount on the first layer and even more on the next :)

A fresh & tangy little piece of heaven on a plate.  MY.WORD!!!!!

My icing skills leave little to be desired, but the taste made up for what the cake lacked in appearance.  Trust me on that!  After I iced the cake, I popped it back in the fridge to set the icing.  And I like cold cake.  Randomly, that’s a true little tidbit about my taste buds I’m sure you never wanted to know.  Unless we’re talking about yellow cake & chocolate icing.  In that case, serve it to me warm with a scoop of vanilla Blue Bell and call it a day. 

This is THE perfect summer cake!!!!!  I could eat it every single day if my thighs weren’t screaming for me to do otherwise.  Now it’s time for you to turn your lemons into something your taste buds will beg for all season long!!!!