A slice of Key Lime Cake is almost as good as a visit to the tropics! It is a light, fluffy, moist cake with a delicious lime cream cheese frosting.
Lime runs a close second to lemon at our house and during the summer we can’t see to get enough key lime! If you are a key lime fan too be sure and try these key lime bars, key lime cookies and key lime pie ice cream for more key lime goodness! And don’t forget key lime pie!
Cake Buffet
Cake BuffetSeveral years ago I put on a Wedding Cake Buffet for the wedding open house for the son of a friend. We hosted the open house at our home. I did a lot of experimenting with cake recipes in preparation for the event. 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.
The first cake I selected was a California Orange Cake, a recipe I shared several years ago. It is probably my all time favorite cake!! Chocolate cake is a must, so that meant the Best Chocolate Cake. And the bride’s father had requested Red Velvet Cake. Of course, 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. It is a sweet cake but isn’t that what cake is suppose to be? Sweet!
How to Make Key Lime Cake
The recipe calls for key lime juice. If you have never purchased key limes before you know they are small and it takes a lot of limes to get the amount of juice I needed so I just bought the bottled Nellie and Joe’s key lime juice you can find in the juice aisle of the grocery store. It works great, the flavor is amazing!
If you want more of a green color to your cake and frosting you can add some green food coloring but I just went with the natural, lighter color that the lime juice gives.
I used three 6 inch cake pans for a 3 layer cake. If you use bigger cake pans you will only get two layers. You can cut each of those two layers in half if you like to give you four layers.
The frosting uses cream cheese but you can also just use a plain buttercream frosting if you prefer. Just use key lime juice instead of the milk in the frosting. The frosting recipe makes a lot so you can be generous when adding the frosting between the layers of cake.
I garnished the cake with some sweetened whipped cream and lime zest. Then, I used a piping bag and a large star tip to pipe the whip cream stars onto the cake. Keep the cake refrigerated until ready to serve if you garnish with whipped cream.
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Key Lime Cake Recipe
Key Lime Cake
Ingredients
Cake
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 1 1/2 cup sugar
- 3/4 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 3 eggs
- 2/3 cup oil
- 2/3 cup key lime juice
- 3/4 cup sour cream
- lime zest for garnish
Frosting
- 1 cup butter softened
- 1 8 oz. cream cheese softened
- 6 cups powdered sugar add more if needed
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1/4 cup key lime juice optional
- green food coloring optional for color
Whipped Cream
- 1 cup heavy whipping cream For garnish on cake
- 1 tablespoons sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
Instructions
Cake
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour 2 8-inch cake pans or 3 6 inch 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 20- 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 powdered 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.
- Garnish top of cake with whipped cream, sprinkle with lime zest
Nutrition
Originally posted June 12, 2013
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Absolutely the best cake ever ! I used cake flour and added 2 tbsp. of extra cake flour for every cup of flour I used. The frosting was a little wet after adding the lime juice. I did not find key lime for this so I used the limes I had ! Delicious cake ! My birthday and my sister’s birthday is on the same day! Thanks again !
Happy Birthday! So glad you enjoyed the cake!
Does this cake need to be refrigerated? I just frosted it, I was a bit disappointed that my two layers didn’t rise a lot? Any suggestions? Both my baking soda and powder are fresh.
Is the whipped cream part only for piping onto the cake? A bit confused as the recipe doesn’t say…
Paula, yes the whipped cream is for the garnish on top. I added the info to 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!
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
Thanks for sharing your thoughts about wedding blog.
Regards
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
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!
Can this be done with out the sour cream.or replaced with greek yogurt?
Yes, you could totally replace it with greek yogurt.
Its in the oven! Certainly easy to make. I’m a box cake baker normally thanks for such great directions.
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.
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!
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
Hi. I am called the lazy but love to cook type cook so….I put all wet ingredients in my food processor. Then pulsed the dry ingredients in. Crossing my fingers, my lazy ones that this will turn out for my daughter’s birthday cake tomorrow. I made a lime curd for the middle later and will frost with a lime cream cheese butter cream. I used your recipe because I always have olive oil around, but not always enough butter! Which was the case today. Thanks for sharing.
Hope it worked out well.
This key lime cake is elegant! Would you please stop by my Wonderful Wednesday Blog Hop and share the link? Thanks! ?
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
That sounds so delicious! I love key lime anything and I love cake! 🙂
It’s a magnificent cake!!
Beautiful done – looks professional
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
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.
Sounds delicious and as always, pretty!
It looks so beautiful with the piping and the pearls!!
Looks delicious!!! I love key lime pie, so key lime cake sounds divine!
That cake looks sinfully delicious!
Hope you will return the visit…
This also looks super awesome! I love lime. Pinning so I don’t loose track of it!
Brilliant…. cutting the two cakes into to have 4 layers! Love it! Beautiful.
This cake looks AMAZING!
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
How divine! I have got to try this, my mouth is truly watering!! 😉
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
Your cake sounds really refreshing and the icing looks lovely and light. I found your blog on Whatever goes Wednesday over at Someday Crafts.
Visiting from Mostly Homemade Mom – I don’t even like Key Limes and your photos make me want a piece!!!
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.
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!