Author Notes
When I was growing up, my grandmother, Nanny, regularly made her Lemon-Lime Refrigerator Sheet Cake. Basically, you cooked a Duncan Hines lemon cake, poked holes in it with a fork once baked, poured liquid lime jello on top and then spread a frosting made of instant lemon pudding, whipped topping mix and cold milk over it. Then your put it in the fridge until nice and cold. The result was a psychedelically-hued green and yellow cake that was cool, creamy and yummy in a simple, not overtly lemony or limey way (you can see a bit of this cake in the photo behind my udpated version).
I wanted to modernize that cake because a) I like to use real ingredients with no weird additives and/or fake flavors, and b) I like to cook from scratch. So, I found a lime cake recipe from Bon Appetit 2009 and adapted this cake from that.
It's intensely limey, intensely lemony and really pretty scrumptious. I hope you like it! —em-i-lis
Ingredients
- For the lime and lemon syrups
-
1 tablespoon
lime zest
-
1/4 cup
fresh lime juice, strained
-
1/2 cup
sugar, divided
-
1 tablespoon
lemon zest
-
1/4 cup
fresh lemon juice, strained
- For the cake
-
3/4 cup
unsalted butter (1.5 sticks), room temp
-
2.5 cups
powdered sugar, divided
-
2
large eggs, room temp
-
1/4 cup
milk
-
1 and 1/3 cups
self-rising flour
Directions
- For the lime and lemon syrups
-
In a small bowl, whisk together the lime zest, lime juice and 1/4 c sugar. Set aside. In a separate small bowl, whisk together the lemon zest, lemon juice and remaining 1/4 c sugar. Set aside.
- For the cake
-
Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter and flour 8-inch square baking pan.
-
Using electric mixer, cream butter and 1.5 c powdered sugar in large bowl. Beat in eggs 1 at a time. Beat in milk, then flour. Transfer batter to prepared pan; smooth top. Bake cake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, 25 minutes.
-
Once you remove the cake, use a skewer or fork to poke holes all over it. Pour the lime syrup you'd set aside evenly over the top of the hot cake. Let cool.
-
When the cake is cool, whisk the remaining 1 cup powdered sugar into the lemon syrup; drizzle over cake. Grate lemon and lime zest over the top if you like. It looks pretty!
Let the cake stand 1 hour, then cut into squares.
See what other Food52ers are saying.