Key Lime Pie Cake is SO yummy! The cake itself is a graham cracker cake and it’s topped and filled with the most delicious key lime buttercream frosting. This sweet cake recipe is awesome for birthdays, parties or just treating yourself!
Homemade Key Lime Desserts
No one in my family will eat lime flavored desserts.
Or lemon.
BUT they will eat lemon AND lime candy.
ANNNND they will eat raw limes and lemons.
But if there is the faintest hint or citrus in a baked good they will take a small bite and say, “yeah, no”.
Not annoying at all.
Me, on the other hand would eat lemon/lime desserts all the live-long day. From here until eternity. Key Lime pie forevahhhh.
So when I decided that I wanted to make this cake, I was under no false illusions that anyone in my house would eat it.
Mwhahahahaa….
A whole cake for me!
Not my fault they don’t like Key Lime anything.
But unfortunately, I have an annoying friend who can smell Key Lime from across the development and just come knocking on my door if they think I might be using the green citrus.
Ok, that’s not what happened.
I texted her. And then she came.
Because we all know, I may talk a big game, but a whole cake I cannot eat.
Plus, I am trying to make all my friends fat, so I look skinny.
Easy Key Lime Pie Cake Recipe With Buttercream Frosting
The idea for this cake was to make it a graham cracker cake, to mimic the graham cracker crust on a Key Lime Pie.
Well..after 2 attempts at making a cake using Graham Crackers and having them fail fail fail, I turned to Better Homes and Gardens for the base cake recipe.
How to Make Key Lime Pie Cake:
Crush up some graham crackers first. You could use your food processor too. You want them to be crushed VERY finely.
I DO have a fantastic graham cake recipe using graham flour that I developed last year. I will share that with you guys another day.
Whisk the crumbs with your other ingredients.
Once you have the batter made, divide it into 2, 8″ cake pans…
And bake it.
Let it cool in the pan for a few minutes before getting it out. Be VERY careful with this cake. It’s super delicate.
(Also make sure you grease your pan heavily AND use parchment rounds on the bottom of the cake pans to help with the release.
When the cake is cooling whip up your frosting. It’s Key Lime Buttercream and it’s fantastic!
Add some zest and key lime juice. I couldn’t find Key Limes at my supermarket, so I used the bottled juice and the zest is from a regular lime. Sorry.
Spread the frosting on the bottom layer…
And then top it with the other layer and frost more!
You could cover the cake with the frosting too, I just loaded the filling HEAVILY with frosting and ran out.
Also I kind of like the look of it all rustic…
The cake is so tender and the graham cracker flavors really come through!
Love this!
Click HERE for more of my KEY LIME treats!
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Key Lime Pie Cake
- Prep Time: 20 min
- Cook Time: 20 min
- Total Time: 50 min
- Yield: Serves 10 1x
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Oven
- Cuisine: American
Description
Key Lime Pie Cake is SO yummy! The cake itself is a graham cracker cake and it’s topped and filled with the most delicious key lime buttercream frosting. This sweet cake recipe is awesome for birthdays, parties or just treating yourself!
Ingredients
Graham Cake
- 1 2/3 cups graham cracker crumbs (about 24 squares)
- 1/2 cup flour
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup vegetable shortening (Crisco)
- 1 cup sugar
- 3 egg yolks
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 3/4 cup milk
Key Lime Buttercream
- 1/2 cup butter, room temperature
- 1 1/2 teaspoons lime zest
- 4 cups powdered sugar
- 3 Tbsp Key lime juice
- 2 Tbsp milk
Instructions
Graham Cake
- Preheat oven to 350°
- Spray two 8″ cake pans with baking spray. Line the bottoms with parchment rounds and then spray again. Make sure to grease the pan carefully, as this cake has a tendency to stick. Set pans aside.
- Whisk first 4 ingredients in a bowl to combine. Set aside.
- IN bowl of stand mixer beat shortening and sugar until smooth. Add in egg yolks and vanilla and continue beating until incorporated, scraping sides as necessary.
- Alternate adding the reserved dry ingredients and the milk in thirds, starting and finishing with the dry.
- Divide batter between two prepared pans and bake for 20 minutes until set. Allow to cool for 10 minutes in pan. Run a knife along the edges to loosen cake from pans and invert pans onto a wire rack to continue cooling. Do this part carefully, as to not break the cake.
- Once cooled frost the cake.
Key Lime Buttercream
- Mix butter and zest in mixer until combined and smooth. Beat in powdered sugar and Key lime juice. Mix until combined. Add in milk and beat until fluffy.
- Fill and frost cake with frosting.
Notes
Graham Cake recipe lightly adapted from BHG
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 slice
- Calories: 454
- Sugar: 62.8 g
- Sodium: 167.9 mg
- Fat: 16.8 g
- Carbohydrates: 75.1 g
- Protein: 2.9 g
- Cholesterol: 55.8 mg
Hi Shelly. I am so excited to make this cake. I love key lime! Being from Florida, I have to tell you that every good (great) key lime pie is made with Nellie & Joe’s Key Lime Juice. Using fresh key lime juice doesn’t give you the same consistant flavor (sometimes it can be so tart you can’t stand it and others not tart at all). Also, have you ever tried to juice a key lime? They are super tiny. I used to have a key lime tree and would spend FOREVER juicing the little things! 🙂
Hi Shelly! I can’t wait to try this recipe! My family loves key lime pie … Think this might be a fun cake for my twins graduation dinner. Any suggestions for making it a little larger? Is it to fragile to try larger cake pans? Need to serve 14.
I wouldn’t recommend doubling the recipe to stack, sorry!! You could increase the amount by 1/2 and bake it in a 9×13, though, which would make it larger enough to feed your 14!
Hmm … How do you feel about a 9″ round instead of 8″?
It will work it will just be a bit thinner 🙂
Hello! can this cake be made the day before? or does it have to be made right before eating?
It can be made a day ahead!