For the few months before the Wedding Cake Buffet I did a lot of experimenting with cake recipes. Believe me no one around here was complaining.
I put a lot of time and effort into the cake menu and making sure the flavors were balanced and well represented.
I knew that I wanted to have a California Orange Cake, a recipe I shared several years ago. I think it is my all time favorite cake!! I also knew I had to have the Best Chocolate Cake and the bride’s father had requested Red Velvet Cake. I love citrus flavored cakes so I knew I needed a lemon cake and when I came across the recipe for a Key Lime Cake over at Bakerella I knew it had to be part of the line up too. How could Bakerella steer me wrong? She didn’t. I loved having three citrus flavors represented – lemon, lime and orange.
I loved this cake. I think I may have eaten more than my share of it. It is a sweet cake but isn’t that what cake is suppose to be? Sweet!
The recipe calls for key lime juice. If you have ever purchased key limes before you know they are small and it would take a lot of limes to get the amount of juice I needed so I just bought the bottled key lime juice – it works great and used the key limes for the photo shoot!
You are going to notice a bit of a difference in the photos in this post. The first time I made the cake I tinted the frosting with a little green food coloring (see photo above) so some of the photos have green frosting in it but for the actual cake buffet I didn’t want it green so just left it white. Bakerella’s cake also was beautifully coated in graham cracker crumbs. I tried that on the first cake and let’s just say my cake didn’t look like her cake and thus you are not seeing photos of it!! I left the crumbs off for the wedding.
For the wedding I piped the top with whip cream stars and sprinkles.
The cake is made by splitting your two layers of cake into four and layering with frosting. I love frosting so for me the more frosting the better!
Then you add a layer of the delicious key lime/cream cheese frosting on the top and bottom. A light, lovely and sweet cake. Perfect for a wedding cake buffet.
For other yummy cakes check out these:
Key Lime Cake
Ingredients
Cake
- 2 C all purpose flour
- 1 1/2 C sugar
- 3/4 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 3 eggs
- 2/3 C oil
- 2/3 cup key lime juice
- 3/4 cup sour cream
Frosting
- 1 C butter softened
- 2 8 oz packages cream cheese softened
- 2 16 oz boxes confectioners’ sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1/4 C key lime juice optional
- green food coloring optional for color
Whipped Cream
- 16 oz. heavy whipping cream
- 3 tablespoons sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
Instructions
Cake
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour 2 8-inch cake pans.
- Mix together flour, sugar, powder, soda and salt into mixer.
- Add eggs, oil and lime juice. Beat until smooth.
- Add sour cream and beat until smooth.
- Pour in prepared pans and bake for 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool and then split each layer into two. Frost
Frosting
- Mix together butter and cream cheese until smooth.
- Add in confectioner's sugar
- Add in vanilla.
- Add in 1/4 cup of key lime juice.
- Add a small amount of green food color if you’d like the frosting tinted.
Whipped Cream
- In a chilled bowl whip cream with sugar and vanilla until stiff peaks form.
Nutrition
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I’ve actually never made a cake with a whipping cream frosting. How long does this hold up in the refrigerator? Would it freeze well? When you set it out, how long do the decorating dollop thingies hold up?
The frosting isn’t actually whipping cream just the piped stars on top and they hold up really well. I refrigerated the leftovers and it held up for several days no problem. Not sure about freezing it though?
Oh, yes, I see that now. This sounds awesome…a must try!
This looks AMAZING! I am going to be pinning and trying! Thanks for the awesome recipe.
Thanks Kara – it was delicious. Ate way too much of it myself.
Visiting from Mostly Homemade Mom – I don’t even like Key Limes and your photos make me want a piece!!!
Your cake sounds really refreshing and the icing looks lovely and light. I found your blog on Whatever goes Wednesday over at Someday Crafts.
Leigh: Can you tell me what size star tip you used for the piped stars on top of cake? Thanks. Can’t wait to try as I love anything “citrusy”
It is an Alteca 828
How divine! I have got to try this, my mouth is truly watering!! 😉
As always, this looks delicious girl! I hope you’ll come link this up at the Weekly Creative Link Party that just went live this morning!
Smiles, Melanie
Reasons To Skip The Housework
The Weekly Creative Link Party
This cake looks AMAZING!
Brilliant…. cutting the two cakes into to have 4 layers! Love it! Beautiful.
This also looks super awesome! I love lime. Pinning so I don’t loose track of it!
That cake looks sinfully delicious!
Hope you will return the visit…
Looks delicious!!! I love key lime pie, so key lime cake sounds divine!
It looks so beautiful with the piping and the pearls!!
Sounds delicious and as always, pretty!
Oh my goodness, my dad loves Key Lime so I decided to do this for our Father’s Day party today and made them into cupcakes for easier access for the little ones. These are out of this world phenomenal! Now if only I could be on the beach… 🙂
I so glad you enjoyed them so much! Love that you made them into cupcakes too.
We will just love this cake! Thank you so much for sharing your great recipe with Full Plate Thursday. Hope you have a great week and come back soon!
Miz Helen
It’s a magnificent cake!!
Beautiful done – looks professional
That sounds so delicious! I love key lime anything and I love cake! 🙂
Hi, Leigh Anne! I just wanted you to know that I included this beautiful cake in a “Favorite Finds” blog post on Yesterfood.
Thanks, and I hope you’re having a good weekend!
Love, Joy
Yesterfood.blogspot.com
This key lime cake is elegant! Would you please stop by my Wonderful Wednesday Blog Hop and share the link? Thanks! ?
Thanks for recently sharing this post on Tasty Thursdays, Leigh Anne. It will be included in my Unlimited Limes roundup in my Fantastic Fruit series tomorrow.
Thanks, Nichi
http://www.mandatorymooch.blogspot.com
Greetings, I bought some key limes the other day and am ready to bake. I wanted to turn this into a bundt cake. Any changes in the recipe?
Not sure about that – I’d just give it a try I have another key lime bundt cake recipe on the blog that is delicious!
I am assuming that the 2 boxes of confectioners sugar ( ingredients)is blended into the cream cheese and butter! It is missing in the directions. Please let me know if this is
incorrect.
The cake sounds delicious.
Its in the oven! Certainly easy to make. I’m a box cake baker normally thanks for such great directions.
Can this be done with out the sour cream.or replaced with greek yogurt?
Yes, you could totally replace it with greek yogurt.
I used this recipe this week for a wedding. I used a 4 X recipe to fill two 12X18 sheet pans and it worked fabulously. I weighed the pans to make sure I had the same amount in each. It rises well so that you end up with a 2-layer cake. I used key lime curd as a filling and sprinkled with Graham Crumble then used 7 Minute Icing. We had a very hot day and I transported 50 miles, so I had a few little bumps… but IF I had been able to make the frosting on location – and not put the curd on until the location.. It would have been perfect. For the Bride and Groom – I used a single recipe in 3 six inch diameter pans and they were also perfect in texture, height and so wonderful to eat. I will use this cake – as a sponge with no curd or icing… it was so good just as a sponge with coffee… Thank you for this recipe… and hope this helps others who might consider it for wedding cakes.
Debbie, So glad the cake worked out so well for yoU!
Would key lime curd be good between the layers?
It would be delicious! You could mix some in with the frosting too if you like
Thanks for sharing your thoughts about wedding blog.
Regards
the recipe that I printed does not note that you split the cake so that there were 4 layers-so I halved the frosting thinking that it was too much before. Still a bit much after. The kids said the frosting tasted like key lime yogurt. Think next time I might leave the cream cheese out.
\Haven’t eaten the cake yet
Bobbi, Fixed that in the recipe. Thanks
This is a beautiful cake. It’s very refreshing and light, my son and his fiancee are using the recipe for their wedding cake.
It is one of my favorite cakes – I am so glad they love it too. Happy Wedding!