Key Lime Cake with Key Lime Cream Cheese Frosting
This post may contain affiliate links that won’t change your price but will share some commission.
Rich, bright, and fluffy, my Easy Key Lime Cake with Key Lime
This cake is the perfect balance of sweet and tart. The cake layers or tender and moist and absolutely a must-make recipe for your next celebration… or no special occasion at all. This is a refreshing cake that’s sure to be a crowd-pleaser and guilty pleasure.
If you can find key limes use them if not use regular limes.
Key Lime Cake with Key Lime Cream Cheese Frosting
Citrus makes me think of Spring. This cake makes a great springtime dessert. St Patrick’s Day, Easter, and Mother’s Day would be the ideal time to enjoy this cake.
One of my favorite things to do is take an extensive recipe and make it easier to prepare. (You know how impatient I am!) I would love to spend hours in the kitchen baking and decorating cakes, prepping and preparing beautiful meals. But, the truth is, I just don’t have that kind of time. My boys have activities and need help with homework and such. I did implement a chore system for them to follow this summer, but they still need supervision. Therefore, for now, it’s simple, easy, and quick dishes!! (Mostly)
Tips and Method
This recipe was inspired by Trisha Yearwood’s Key Lime Cake, but I made it easier! I started with a cake mix with additions that make it taste homemade. The Key Lime
Cake mix and gelatin.
Pour the oil into the mixing bowl.
Then add the eggs and mix on high speed to combine.
I got excited and didn’t take pix of adding the orange juice, lime juice, and vanilla extract.
Pour the batter into the pan, then bake until the cake sets. You’ll know it’s baked when a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, or with a few moist crumbs.
I was planning to give the key lime cake away, so I baked it in a disposable aluminum pan.
When I originally made this lime cake for my site, I made at in a 9×13-inch aluminum pan. I made it again for a celebration and made three 8-inch round layers. For both cakes, I topped them with a Key Lime
How to frost a layer cake
Tip #1: Begin by ensuring your cakes are level; if they’ve domed during baking, trim the tops with a serrated knife or a cake leveler. If they’ve caved, no need to level them; simply fill the cavity with frosting.
Place the first cake on a cake board or plate using a cake lifter, then place the plate on a cake turntable. Add approximately 1/2 cup of frosting. Use an angled spatula to spread it evenly.
Tip #2: Evenly measure the frosting for each layer. Spread the frosting evenly over each layer, pushing any excess towards the edges.
Continue stacking the layers, ensuring equal portions of frosting between them. If it’s the final layer, place it with the flat side up and add about 1/2 cup of frosting on top. Smooth it evenly, and then apply a thin crumb coat of frosting to the sides.
Chill the cake for at least 30 minutes to set the crumb coat. Afterward, spread another 1/2 cup of frosting on top and frost the sides with a thick coat. Use a cake knife to smooth the sides, and then apply the same technique to smooth the top.
Tip #3: For easier smoothing, frost the cake with a thick layer of frosting. Following these steps will give you a clean canvas for your cake decorating endeavors.
If you like this Key Lime Cake you’ll like my Key Lime Coconut Marbled Pound Cake (pin it) and my Key Lime Pound Cake (pin it).
Easy Key Lime Cake with Key Lime Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients
For the cake
- 1 package white cake mix
- 3 ounces lime flavored gelatin
- ½ cup vegetable oil
- ¾ cup orange juice
- 4 large eggs
- 2 tablespoons Nellie & Joe’s Key West Lime Juice freshly squeezed, or lime juice
- ½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
For the Frosting
- ½ cup butter at room temperature
- 8 ounces cream cheese at room temperature
- 3 and ½ cups powdered sugar (aka confectioners) sifted before measuring
- 2 tablespoons Nellie & Joe’s Key West Lime Juice freshly squeezed, or lime juice
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Instructions
For the cake
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 3 – 8 inch round cakes pans or 1 – 9×13 cake pan.
- In a large mixing bowl, add cake mix and gelatin. Add 1 cup oil and ¾ cup orange juice and beat on low.
- Add eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition. Add lime juice and vanilla. Beat 2 minutes on med hi, scraping sides.
- Pour into cake pans. Bake 8 inch layers 22-25 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. Bake 9×13 inch cake 27- 30 minutes. Cool completely before icing with Key Lime Cream Cheese Frosting.
- *For the stacked layered cake, I used three 8 inch pans and cooked them for 27 minutes at 350 degrees.
For the Frosting
- Beat 1/2 cup butter and 8 ounces cream cheese until smooth, add confectioners sugar with a mixer on low. Add lime juice and vanilla. Mix until smooth. Frost cake.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutritional information given is an automatic calculation and can vary based on the exact products you use and changes you make to the recipe. If these numbers are important to you, I recommend calculating them yourself.
I have this cake in the oven now. Smells wonderful, however two 8 inch round pans are taking much longer than the 25 minutes it says. Make sure you allow more baking time.
Definitely if u just used 2 – 8 inch pans it will take longer. I used 3 -8 inch pans.
DELICIOUS!!!!! What I also did in effort to lighten it up, I used 2 small sugar free lime gelatin boxes and instead of cream cheese frosting I put on a dollop of SF Cool Whip!!!! Light and refreshing !!!! Thanks for the recipie!
Very good! May add a touch more of lime to the icing but it is very yum just like it is!!! Thanks 🙂
Hello Paula,
Me and the kids tried baking this cake. The icing came out great but the cake not so great.. I greased my 9 by 13 baking aluminum cake pan, but I ended up burning the cake, I don’t know what happened 🙁
Awe, I’m so sorry. Have you calibrated your oven. A lot of time the oven temp can be way off from what it’s set at, this sounds like what may have happened. You can get an oven thermometer from Walmart and test it. set the oven to 350 and when the oven says it’s at that temp check to see what the thermometer says, the themometer will be correct.
Thanks I will defiantly purchase one and retry.
Hi Paula,
I cant get the lime gelatine here, in my country.
Is there any subtitute for this?
thank you..:)
I don’t know of a substitute, it’s the made ingredient that gives it the lime flavor
Yummo! Thanks for the recipe.
This cake is so deliciously moist! I have added 7-Up instead of orange juice. When I make the icing, I squeeze the limes to get extra pulp in there. It gives it an added tangy-ness! One of our favorite cakes!
Just finished making this, whipped up super fast, tastes heavenly! Used juice of one orange mixed with fresh lime juice to make up the 3/4 cup of orange juice called for. Also added lime zest to the frosting. Thanks for sharing, going in the ‘keeper’ file!
Awesome! I’m so glad you like it and I love your changes!
A couple of things. I use 9 inch pans and my cakes sink in the middle. How can I adjust the recipe for this size pan? Please help. Thanking you in advance.
Cynthia
It sounds like they weren’t cooked long enough. First calibrate your oven to make sure it’s cooking at the temperature it’s reading/set to. Or get a cake thermometer like this > https://amzn.to/3dVV6QU. It should read 210 when the cake is done. test the center of the cake and don’t touch the pan itself
This cake tastes amazing!
I made this cake for my dad’s birthday and everyone in my family loved it.
I would suggest making this.
Thank you so much for letting me know Emily!!! I’m so glad your family loved it!
I’d like to make key lime cake pops. The only coating I can find is vanilla to dip the cake in. Any ideas to enhance the cake lime flavor without using the frosting? Thank you!
You could add lime extract to white melting chocolate> https://amzn.to/2VBGfFn and/or sprinkle lemon ‘powder’ on top of the coating https://amzn.to/2UInBva
This is a good article on adding flavoring to chocolate https://www.thespruceeats.com/how-to-flavor-chocolate-521578