Just in Lime for Summer

I'd like to point out I've managed to make it all the way to the middle of May before I started complaining about summer heat this year. If we still lived in Florida, these tantrums would've began in February, so thank you, New Mexico: the land of enchantment and lower A/C bills. Plus it's a dry heat, so if you place me in the shade with a cold beverage, I can make it approximately 90 minutes without a single complaint. It's a personal best. But one thing summer always makes me want is a Cherry Limeade from Sonic. Because I draw the lime at suffering through the heat without some form of thirst-quenching goodness. I had one a few weeks ago, and it inspired me to try turning it into a cake. I mean, that's why we're all here, right? As great as I am with a turn of phrase, we're here for dessert.

My charming wit is the cherry on top of my personality, though.

You shouldn't look directly into the sun or probably at this cake without risk of retinal scarring. I apologize. It's like a 90s Lisa Frank fever dream, but you can eat it! Now I'm feeling both nostalgic and a little dizzy, but that could either be from the heat or my eyes are about to pop out of my head due to how bright this cake is. I will say its flavor is sub-lime...it tastes cherry delicious. I've turned a lot of drinks into cake flavors, but this is hands-down the closest interpretation to the real thing. Sweet cherry flavor with a sour lime bite--it's completely refreshing which also makes it very dangerous. I can down a Route 44 diet Cherry Limeade in approximately two minutes, and I'm pretty sure I could eat half this cake in the same amount of time. Good thing it's only 264 calories a slice for 12 slices, or we'd have a swimsuit season snafu on our hands.

Wondering if you have a cut on any of your fingers? Discover every open wound with the help of citrus! Curing scurvy and causing debilitating hang-nail burning since the dawn of time.

I juiced so many limes for this cake and found so, so many cuts on my hands whose existence prior to that point were completely unknown. It was a real hoot. For the cake you need:

• 1 box of yellow or white cake mix (I tried Cup4Cup gluten free yellow cake mix)
• 1 packet of sugar free cherry Jell-o
• 1 cup of milk
• 3/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
  
• 1/4 cup of fresh squeezed lime juice* 
• 1 tsp lime zest
  
• 4 egg whites  
• 1 tsp almond extract
• Chopped maraschino cherries to your preference (I used 56 grams)
• Hot pink gel dye
  

*You could also use bottled lime juice. Kind of against baking rules, but using it is more of a white collar lime, so light punishment only if you're caught.

Preheat your oven to 325 and grease three 6-inch round or two 8-inch round cake pans with cooking spray. With a whisk attachment, whip the milk, applesauce, lime juice, lime zest, extract, and egg whites until slightly fluffy. Add in the cake mix and Jell-o, whisking just until everything comes together. Fold in the chopped cherries by hand. Evenly distribute batter into your pans and bake for 35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Start checking around 30 minutes if using the 8-inch pans.

These layers deserve a turn in the limelight.

Once done baking, leave your cakes in the pan for 10 minutes while on a cooling rack. Turn these out on the rack to completely cool before frosting. You can plop your cooling rack into the fridge or freezer to speed this up.
 

Oh look, more limes. I would love to know how many limes Sonic uses in a day. I'm sure its more than six, but does the same person have to cut and juice them all day? My hangnails just recoiled in horror.

I have not made a traditional buttercream in about two years because I find it way too sweet and calorie dense. I made it for this cake because I needed very stiff frosting to pipe a particular pattern on top of the cake. Spoiler alert: the pattern didn't work, so I scraped it off and started over with something completely different. 

I made this a naked cake for a few reasons: less buttercream/lower calories, I wanted the cake layer colors to show through, and my husband is currently away, so I wanted to be able to take the top layer off to freeze it for him to have when he gets home. I know, I'm shocked I share cake, too.

To make the buttercream, you need:

• 1 cup of butter at room temp
• 4 cups of powered sugar or Lakanto powdered monkfruit
• 1/4 cup plus 1 tsp lime juice
• 1 tsp almond extract
• Hot pink and lime green gel dyes
• Large round tip and two 125 petal tips or another large round tip
  

Whip the butter until fluffy in a stand mixer, about 3 minutes. Add in half the powdered monkfruit, the almond extract, and half the lime juice, mixing well then scraping the bowl. Add in the rest of the powdered monkfruit and lime juice, blending fully. Remove a third of the frosting to another bowl and dye hot pink. Dye the frosting in the main mixing bowl lime green.

Once upon a lime, when I still had hope this cake would turn out how I wanted.

Place a cooled cake layer face down, then take split your frostings: fill a piping bag with large round tip with half the green frosting, another with the 125 petal tip and the rest of the green frosting, and the final bag with another 125 petal tip and hot pink frosting.

Is...is it alien poo?

With the large round tip, pipe circle blobs around the edge of your cake layer. Now grab an angled spatula.

Whew, looks more like a flower now. That's relaxing and not at all gross.

Take your angled spatula, and in the middle of one blob, push down and swipe away, pulling your frosting toward the middle of the cake. Repeat on all blobs. You will need to add a little dollop of frosting in the middle and just smooth this out; nothing fancy needed here since no one will see it. Unless knowing it isn't piped exactly the same bothers you, then by all means, let your OCD take the wheel.

Pretty sure this looks like a giant Lady Gaga Oreo.

Add your next layer, and repeat with the blobbing.

This cake is very psychedelic. I do not recommend making this cake if you're on any form of drugs. Even Benadryl. I'm afraid of what could happen.

Exsqueeze me, you are not what I was going for...

I added my final layer, tried to pipe a herringbone pattern, and it just was not working. I didn't use a coupler, so I was stuck with two giant bags of frosting with large petal tips. You could make waves with this, but I wanted a pattern that would match the middle layers of frosting, so I piped alternating colors with the large end of the frosting tip facing me. I would've preferred to use the large circle tips to pipe alternating blobs of color, and dragged those to the center of the cake like the middle layers, but it is what it is (and what it is is still edible cake).

I repeated a few more circles while cursing my lack of foresight. I ALWAYS use couplers. The one time I don't...

It's incredibly colorful, but not what I was going for, so I'm sad. Which means I need cake, so boy does this ever work out in the end.

Now, for the actual cherries on top.

Best part of the Cherry Limeade is the cherry waiting for you in the bottom of your cup. You know you're gonna get to chew on that amazing Sonic ice to get to it, and this is your final reward for making an excellent beverage choice from start to absolute finish. Moral of the story: don't forget to add more cherries to the top of your cake to tie everything together.

Brighter than 1,000 suns, this one.

 You will have a LOT of leftover frosting (I used half). This can be frozen and used again at a later date or shame-eaten because your design didn't turn out the way you wanted. 100% up to you...

Just looking at it makes me both thirsty and hungry at the same time.

For the full experience, go grab a Cherry Limeade from Sonic, then eat a slice of this cake. It will BLOW YOUR MIND. You could say this cake is my main squeeze right now. It really and truly tastes exactly like the drink which makes me extremely happy and way less of a sourpuss dealing with the summer heat and the sun's infernal rage. The cherry and lime are meant to be together, and the burst of cherry chunks in the cake mixed with the citrus from the lime are bliss. I don't even mind the traditional buttercream frosting either; the lime juice balances everything out just right so it isn't sickeningly sweet. I may start wearing sunglasses while I eat it though because looking directly at this cake is like stepping outside from a dark movie theater into the sun. Worth it. 'Til next time, my fellow eaters!

Made it just in lime for summer!