Servings : Serves 10-12
A ‘poke’ cake is basically a sponge cake that is baked and then poked all over with a skewer or fork and jelly or pudding is poured onto it. This makes for a beautifully moist and refreshing cake which happens to be my absolute favourite summer treat!
It works smashingly well as a dessert too, and the best thing about it is that you can alter the flavour to suit your taste. My personal preference is using strawberry jello, but you could use whichever flavour or colour that you like, lemon/lime, raspberry, pineapple, blueberry, mango etc.
To make life even easier, I usually use a box of white, vanilla or yellow cake mix to prepare the cake instead of baking one from scratch, making it not only the ideal summer project to prepare with the little kiddies, but also a great easy sweet dish to serve during various occasions. You could also colour co-ordinate the jelly to correspond with various holidays or special occasions.
Ingredients
- 1 box Betty Crocker white or vanilla cake mix
- 1 pack Jello strawberry jelly (plus water as per the Jello pack directions)
- 2 cups sweetened whipping cream or dream whip
- freshly sliced strawberries (or summer fruits of choice)
Instructions
Preheat the oven at 180 C.
Grease a 9×13 baking pan with butter or margarine. Do not use grease-proof paper as we shall not be turning the cake out of the pan after baking.
When baking from a cake mix, I substitute the water for milk and the oil for melted butter/margarine to ensure the cake is soft, moist and more flavourful.
Prepare the cake mix as per box directions, pour the batter into the baking pan and bake for around 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean. Once its ready, remove from the oven and allow the cake to cool for about 15 minutes.
In the meantime, prepare the jelly. Then, use the back end of a wooden spoon to poke holes spaced out at around one inch intervals all over the cake. Pour the jelly all over the cake and allow it to absorb and rest for about an hour.
Frost the cake with sweetened whipping cream or dream whip and refrigerate until ready to serve. Add the freshly sliced fruits over the top right before serving.
Enjoy! 🙂
