Do you Potluck? Lemon Jello Cake

Never fear! I will be posting a “real” cake recipe in a few weeks. But for now, with the lazy, hot days of summer fully upon us, this easy staple of church bazaars and potlucks will suffice.

Lemon Jello Cake

• 1 box yellow or white cake mix
• 1 box (3 oz.) lemon jello
• water, oil, eggs as directed in cake mix instructions
• 2 tbsp lemon extract
• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 2 tsp flavor extract (vanilla, lemon, almond, etc..)
• 1/4 cup water

1. Preheat oven and prepare pan according to cake mix instructions. Personally, this cake screams BUNDT!
2. In a large bowl, add the jello mix to the dry cake mix.
3. Add wet ingredients as directed in cake mix instructions adding 2 tbsp lemon extract as well.
4. Prepare batter, pour into pan and bake all as directed in cake mix instructions.
5. Because I made a Bundt cake I also made a glaze for it by combining powdered sugar, water, and vanilla.
6. Combine the glaze ingredients then let it sit for a few minutes to thicken up and smooth out. Add the water little by little, stopping once you have the consistency you want. I also added about 3 drops of yellow food coloring because my vanilla extract turned my glaze brown.
7. Once your cake has cooled, begin spooning the glaze along the top of the Bundt cake allowing it to naturally drip and run down the sides.

A few notes. Notice if you subbed the word “strawberry” for the word “lemon” in the above recipe you’d get a strawberry jello cake, or any other jello flavor you’d enjoy in cake form. Also, I picked a vanilla glaze thinking it would balance out the lemoniness of the cake, but I think I would prefer a lemon glaze next time for even more lemon flavor. Jello cake has a moist sweetness with a subtle lemony flavor so I think an extra lemony punch from the glaze would be nice.

This is a great recipe to make with kids considering it mostly consists of dumping ingredients into a bowl. My three year old would have probably done most of this by herself if she had been home when I made it. As it was, my six year old sifted the powdered sugar (not a necessary step, I just thought she’d enjoy it) and helped spoon the glaze over the cake. I would have had her make the cake too but she couldn’t pry herself away from Cinderella 3 long enough to be of any help.