This cake. Oh my word!
This cake is beyond fantastic. You are going to want to make this cake!
Not only is this possibly the prettiest cake I’ve ever made (I’m not known for making pretty food), but it’s also one of the best tasting. Maybe the very best.
I was inspired to create the recipe because of one of the donuts we served at Meredith’s wedding. The Cherry Limeade donuts were my favorite of all of them. They were cherry cake donuts with a limeade frosting that had the perfect amount of tang and sweet.
I knew I would use the Maraschino Cherry Cake recipe I made a few years ago. It’s got such a pretty color and definite cherry flavor that isn’t overwhelming.
But I was a little stumped as to the frosting. My first thought was to buy limeade mix. You know, like lemonade mix only limeade flavor. I was thinking of doing something like I did with the Strawberry Lemonade Cookies. The problem was, they don’t sell limeade dry mix.
Thankfully, I talked to my mom before I started the frosting and she reminded me that there’s a frozen limeade concentrate. She suggested using that. I probably could have used straight up lime juice instead, but I was stuck on the idea of limeade. And the frozen concentrate gave me exactly what I wanted – a sweet, tart, definite lime flavor that complemented the cherry cake perfectly.
Grab your grocery list, because you’re going to want to add these ingredients to it! Here’s what you’ll need: 
Never mind that blue box in the center of the photo. That’s covering up the lemon lime drink mix I bought before I changed course. Thank goodness I made that change or the frosting would have been much different!
Here’s a photo of the Limeade Frosting ingredients:
Cherry Limeade Cake
Ingredients
- 10 oz jar maraschino cherries
- 1 white cake mix
- reserved cherry juice
- enough milk to make 1 cup of liquid
- 1 stick melted butter
- 2 tsp vanilla
- 3 eggs
For the Frosting
- 2-3 cups powdered sugar
- 3 Tbs. butter softened
- 4-7 Tbs. limeade concentrate thawed
- green food color gel optional
Instructions
- Drain the cherries, reserving the juice.
- Coarsely chop the cherries.
- Add enough milk to cherry juice to make 1 cup of liquid.
- In a mixing bowl, combine cake mix, cherries, milk/cherry juice, butter, vanilla and eggs. Mix well with electric mixer.
- Pour into greased bundt pan.
- Bake 350 degrees for 33-36 minutes.
- Remove from oven and cool in pan 10 minutes.
- Remove from pan and cool completely.
For the Frosting
- In a bowl, stir together by hand the butter, powdered sugar and small amount of limeade.
- Alternately add more limeade and powdered sugar until you have a thick frosting. You want it very thick, but not stiff so that it will run down the edges of the cake.
- Pour over top of cooled cake.
- Top with extra cherries if desired.
I made this cake this past weekend and It was really good however I thought that the cherry flavor of the cake overpowered the limeade frosting, which was amazing by itself and I wished I had been able to taste it more with the cake. I was thinking I could reduce the amount of cherry juice and fix this though.
Thanks for the feedback. I love cherry, so I thought it was a great combo, but you’re right – the limeade frosting is amazing by itself! I may have to try putting the frosting on other things. Good idea!
does it have go be a bunt cake pan? can you make it a 9×13?
Tessa – Yes, you can use a 9 x 13. You’ll want to keep an eye on it and check it a good 5 minutes before the stated cooking time and adjust as needed. 🙂
Perhaps while still warm, use a simple syrup with sugar and some of the lime concentrate and water to infuse some of that tang into the cake itself…or maybe use some of lime juice in the batter instead of all the cherry juice.?
Can you use soy milk instead of the whole milk? For someone allergic to dairy?
I haven’t tried that, but I think it would work. I think some cake mixes call for water instead of milk, so you could just use water.