A Cake For Spring

I made this cake a few days ago, just for the sake of emptying my cupboard of one cake mix and three packages of instant pistachio pudding mix. But as these things have a habit of doing, my cake took on a life of its own. First, my daughter-in-law spied the makings on the counter.

“Whatcha making?”

“I’m not sure yet … it’s an experiment.”

“For what?”

“I thought I’d make some sort of cake and take it to the church potluck tomorrow.”

Brittney’s face fell, and I could see in her eyes that she didn’t want to share cake with the church. And then her mouth told me the same thing.

“Do you want me to make one for us too?” I asked.

She did. And she wanted me to do it THIS MINUTE. You have to love a girl who loves your cooking. 🙂

I made the cake, kind of making it up as I went. And when it came out of the oven, and cooled enough, I stood there swirling all that beautiful greenery over the top and thinking about how multi-purpose this little cake is. It could be for Saint Patrick’s Day, or the first day of Spring, or even for Easter. There’s just something very hopeful about all this light green goodness staring back at you.

Here’s how version one went. I’ll tell you about version two (which required a trip to the store) at the end:

A Cake For Spring

Cake:

• 1 box golden yellow mix (with pudding added)
• 2 small boxes instant pistachio pudding mix
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 cup oil
• 1 cup milk
• 1/4 cup water
• dash vanilla

Frosting:

• 1 small box instant pistachio pudding mix
• 1 cup milk
• 1 8 oz container Cool Whip (or just a batch of cream whipped with a tiny bit of powdered sugar)

What’s that you say? “Pudding in the mix and pudding added to the mix and pudding in the frosting equals pudding overload?” What does that mean? I see your lips moving, but all I hear is a lot of garbled nonsense. Is this some fancy new language?

Anyway, back to English. It’s a pretty simple process. Just mix up all the cake ingredients, pour in prepared pan (I used a 9 x 13 this time, but I think I’ll make it in a bundt pan next time), and bake at 350 for about 40 minutes. Check five minutes early to see if it’s done. It’s a very moist cake, so it may seem underdone, but it’s not.

For the frosting, mix the pudding mix with the milk, then slowly blend in the Cool Whip.

Frost the cake when cooled. Store leftovers (if there are any) in the fridge.

And here’s the story of the second cake, the one that actually made it to the church potluck …

I remember pushing the “4” and “0” on my stove, and believed with all my heart that I had just set the timer, but sometimes what we believe is not true. Because about an hour after doing so, I noticed an “I’m done, already!” smell coming from the oven. Gasping, opening, grabbing and puzzling ensued. How had I not set the timer? The cake wasn’t burned, but the edges were a little … not soft. I was afraid it wouldn’t be as moist as it could have been, so I decided to turn it into a poke cake. Only this time, I decided to do it with two small boxes of strawberry Jello (all I had), instead of one. It was Jello-y, all right. And very, very red. And since it was gone by the end of the potluck, I have to believe it was tasty enough. Still … not the prettiest cake I ever made. I think I’ll stick to the first version.