Easy Spring Poke Cake
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Grab a box cake mix, dye it with fun spring colors, pour lemon pudding into the holes in the cake, and top it all off with a light whipped frosting for an easy to make and tasty Spring Poke Cake.
Spring is finally here and I’m ready for all the pastel colors, warm weather, and flowers outside! I’m also ready to change my baking strategy from chocolate cakes and spiced cookies to light and airy dessert filled with fresh fruits and fluffy frosting.
Since I always seem to have an abundance of cake mixes at this point in the year I thought it would be fun to make a spring poke cake.
What is a Poke Cake?
A poke cake is a type of cake that is baked, then poked with holes (usually using a fork, wooden handle of a spoon, or a skewer) and filled with a liquid to add extra flavor and moisture. The filling can be things like pudding, Jell-O, fruit puree, pie filling, or sweetened condensed milk.
I always like to make my poke cakes with a boxed cake mix because so much of the flavor comes from what you pour over top of the cake to go down into the holes. The cake is secondary to the filling so a boxed cake is easy to use.
I’ve made a lot of different poke cakes over the years. In the spring I love making this bright Lemon Poke Cake. Sometimes I enjoy cake for breakfast and you can’t beat this Cinnamon Roll Poke Cake. For a celebration this Turtle Poke Cake with caramel and nuts is the best. The holidays are better with this easy to make Red Velvet Poke Cake.
For this spring poke cake I simply made a box of yellow cake mix. You could also use a lemon cake mix or a white cake mix. Then I divided it into four different bowls and dyed each bowl of batter a different color.
What type of food coloring should I use?
I am partial to gel food coloring because I think it works the best. You only need a very small amount to get the color you are looking for. My favorite food coloring are AmeriColor Gel Food Coloring. In this case I used a few of the colors from the electric or neon set.
Once the batter is colored you can randomly drop it into the pan and gently swirl it. Don’t swirl it too much because you want to be able to see all of the different colors. After the cake is cooked you will poke holes in it and fill the holes with lemon pudding.
Ingredients:
- yellow or white cake mix
- salted butter (or unsalted if you prefer)
- eggs
- whole milk (you can use plant based milk if desired)
- food coloring
- lemon pudding mix (you can also use vanilla pudding mix)
- Cool Whip (don’t use real whipped cream for this frosting)
- powdered sugar
- vanilla or lemon extract
To make the cake preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 9 x 13 baking dish with cooking spray and set aside.
In a large bowl combine the melted butter, eggs, and whole milk. Add the cake mix and mix well. Divide into 4 bowls and color each one with a spring color. Randomly add the batter to the prepared pan and gently swirl. Bake for 30-35 minutes.
Once the cake comes out of the oven let it cool for 10 minutes then use the handle of a wooden spoon, a skewer, or chopsticks and poke holes all over the surface. Pour half of the lemon pudding over top and spread it over the cake making sure it goes into the holes.
Combine the Cool Whip, powdered sugar, and extract and mix well. Frost the cake with this easy frosting and refrigerate until ready to serve.
This is a lovely cake with light vanilla and lemon flavor. While there is a bit of heaviness to it because of the lemon pudding it is not overly dense.
The Cool Whip Frosting is light and pairs nicely with the cake. I added lemon extract to my frosting but you could add lemon juice and zest or go with a vanilla extract instead.
Can I make a different kind of frosting?
You can certainly make an American buttercream or Italian buttercream to go on top of this cake. Either of those can be flavored with lemon or vanilla as well.
If you want to make this for another occasion you can simply leave the dye out of the cake or you can dye it to match your occasion. Pink and blue would be great for a gender reveal or baby shower, red, white, and blue would be perfect for patriotic holidays, or black and orange could be used for a Halloween cake.
How do you store this cake?
Cover the cake in the pan it was baked in and store it in the refrigerator for up to 4 days. Remove it from the refrigerator 15 minutes before serving.
If you’ve tried my Spring Poke Cake on Hezzi-D’s Recipe Box please take a minute to rate the recipe and leave a comment letting me know how you liked it. I love hearing from you! You can FOLLOW ME on:
Spring Poke Cake
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 box 13.25 oz yellow cake mix
- 5 Tablespoon butter melted
- 3 cups milk divided
- 3 eggs
- gel food coloring
- 1 3.4 oz package Instant lemon pudding mix
- 1 8 oz container Cool Whip, thawed
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon lemon extract
Instructions
- To make the cake preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 9 x 13 baking dish with cooking spray and set aside.
- In a large bowl combine the melted butter, one cup of milk, and three eggs. Mix until well combined.
- Add in the cake mix and mix for one minute.
- Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan. Bake for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
- Allow the cake to cool for 10 minutes then using the handle of a wooden spoon or a skewer poke holes all over the cake.
- In a medium mixing bowl combine the lemon pudding mix and remaining milk. Mix well to combine. Pour half the pudding over top of the cake and smooth over top of the holes making sure the pudding goes down into it. Add more pudding until no more will go down into the holes of the cake.
- Allow the cake to cool completely.
- To make the frosting mix together the Cool Whip, powdered sugar, and lemon extract. Whip until smooth. Spread over top of the cake.
- Top with festive sprinkles if desired.
Notes
