This cake has come a long way. It started as a Key Lime Bundt Cake which I drizzled with a Tequila and Triple-Sec spiked Margarita icing, but I now make it as a layer cake with Key lime flavored cream cheese icing. Both versions work, it just depends on what you are in the mood for. Here's an old picture of the Bundt cake.
Layer Cake Version
And here's a photo of the layer cake version. The frosting for this cake is so good. Rather than do a Margarita themed frosting (which might be overkill compared to a Margarita glaze or drizzle), I just used a very tart lime flavored Key lime frosting and added a layer of homemade lemon curd which I just happened to have leftover from another baking project.
Bundt Cake or Layer Cake
So there are two different versions of this cake -- the Key Lime Bundt Cake with Margarita Icing below and the Key Lime Layer Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting which is in the recipe card.
Key Lime Bundt Cake with Margarita Icing
2 cups sifted cake flour (215 grams) -- do not use AP
¼ teaspoon each baking soda and baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
4 large eggs
2 cups sugar (divided use) (14 oz)
⅓ cup (75 grams) unsalted butter, softened
⅓ cup (64 grams) shortening
1 ½ tablespoons lime zest
⅓ cup Key lime juice (bottled) or fresh lime juice
⅔ cup sour cream (160 ml), regular not light!
Garnish: confectioners' sugar and fresh strawberries
Margarita Icing
1 ½ oz cream cheese (42 grams)
½ oz (1 T) unsalted butter (14 grams)
¾ cup confectioners’ sugar (70 grams)
½ tablespoon tequila
A little over ½ tablespoon Triple sec
½ tablespoon lime juice (more or less to taste & consistency)
Directions for Bundt Cake
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Spray a 10-inch Bundt pan with flour-added cooking spray.
Sift together cake flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
Separate the eggs. Put yolks in one bowl and put whites in another, preferably metal and big enough to use as a mixing bowl. With an electric mixer, beat the whites until soft peaks begin to form. Gradually add ½ cup of the granulated sugar and continue beating until mixture is thick and glossy. Set that mixture aside.
In a large bowl, beat butter & shortening with an electric mixer until creamy. Gradually add the remaining 1 ½ cup of sugar and beat for a good 4-5 minutes. Beat in the lime zest. Add egg yolks, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Gradually add flour mixture to butter mixture, alternately with lime juice and sour cream, beginning and ending with flour mixture, beating well after each addition.
Fold the beaten egg whites/sugar mixture into the batter. Pour mixture into prepared pan. Bake for 1 hour or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean.
Let cake cool in pan for 10 minutes. Remove cake from pan, and cool completely on a wire rack. Make frosting.
Beat together the softened cream cheese, butter and sugar. Add booze and beat until smooth. Taste and make sure it’s lime-y or tequila-y enough and adjust until you get what you want.
Spoon it over the cake and let it set. You can throw it in the refrigerator to speed the setting of the icing.
Recipe
Key Lime Layer Cake
Ingredients
- 2 cups sifted cake flour or 1 ¾ cup plus 2 T. unsifted
- ¼ teaspoon baking powder (increase to ½)
- ¼ tsp. baking soda
- 2 cups granulated sugar (400 grams)
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 4 large eggs
- ⅓ cup unsalted butter
- ⅓ cup shortening
- ⅓ cup fresh or bottled key lime juice (Nelly & Joe's)
- ¾ cup sour cream
- 2 tablespoons fresh lime zest
Key Lime Cream Cheese Frosting:
- 8 oz cream cheese softened (230 grams)
- 8 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened (114 grams)**
- 2 ½ cups confectioners’ sugar
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 teaspoons lime zest
- 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
Garnish
- 1 cup shredded sweetened coconut toasted
- Lemon Curd
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray 2 9-inch round baking pans with flour-added cooking spray or grease with shortening, line with parchment and dust with flour.
- Sift flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt together.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form. Gradually beat in ½ cup of the sugar. When thick, scrape whites into another bowl.
- Add butter, shortening and sugar to the stand mixer bowl. No need to clean it. Beat for about 3 to 5 minutes or until light and creamy. Gradually beat in the egg yolks, one by one. Beat in the sour cream and the key lime juice.
- Add the flour and stir or beat on medium until evenly blended. By hand, fold in the beaten egg white/sugar mixture.
- Pour cake batter into cake pans and bake for 25 to 35 minutes or until a tooth pick comes out clean (mine took 32 minutes).
- Cool in pans for 5 minutes and then turn cakes out onto cooling racks. Cool for 1 hour.
- Spread frosting over cakes, stack and ice the whole cake with frosting. Spread toasted coconut over top and down sides. If you happen to have lemon or lime curd, you can put a layer of lemon curd between the two cake layers and on top. It really enhances the citrus flavor of the cake, but is not required.
Frosting
- In a mixing bowl, beat together cream cheese and butter. Add vanilla, then add 2 cups of powdered sugar. Beat in the lime juice – beating and scraping sides of bowl all the while, then (if not sweet enough) add remaining powdered sugar ½ cup at a time until you reach desired consistency and sweetness. Adjust with more lime juice if desired.
Anna says
Janet, you most definitely can use butter. In fact, the original recipe that I used to create this one (there's a link up in the copy) is made with all butter.
The most important thing with this cake is to use sifted cake flour. Sifting the cake flour will not only remove lumps, but it will ensure that your 2 cups weighs around 200 grams (give or take 10 grams above or below). If you don't sift the flour you'll be using more like 230 grams and have lumps. If you use all-purpose flour you might be using as much as 280 grams depending on how you scoop your flour. So to be safe, weigh the flour or at least sift the cake flour before measuring by volume.
Janet says
Sounds GREAT! Can I use all butter? I’m not a shortening person.
Claire says
Mmmm, this sounds really good! Margarita is just about the ONLY drink with alcohol that I have been able to tolerate...probably all the sugar. 🙂 Might do this without the tequila, though.
Linda says
Hi!
Could you make this with just butter? I dom't like using shortening since it's hydrogenated. Or I guess I could run out and get organic shortening.
Thanks! Looks delicious.
Anna says
Debby, I'm glad you liked it!
Debby says
I made this cake today, but I "bathed" it in a lime glaze/bath and then made lime cream cheese frosting...no booze. The cake is absolutely to die for, an excellent recipe, but I must admit, it's a lot of work.
Anna says
Thanks for trying it, C!
CPB says
I made this last weekend and it was wonderful! Very delicious and extremely pretty, too.
Heidi Namba says
Anna,
This is the first comment I've left for you but I follow your blog pretty much every day. I'm not even sure how I came across it but now I'm addicted. I have a bag of limes that I bought from Trader Joes sitting on my kitchen counter just waiting to be used! This cake will be perfect and sounds delicious. Thank you for posting it. I will report back with my result.
I just started my own baking blog about a month ago and would like to share it with you.
heidibakes.blogspot.com
Please check it out. Let me know what you think. I don't quite know everything I'm doing yet but I'm trying to make it visually appealing as well as giving good information. Thanks Anna!
Steph says
A lime bundt cake sounds yummy!
C L (Rancher'sWife) says
Fuzz has developed a discerning palate! Daiquiri Ice is one of the best flavors. If it isn't in the BR stores now, it will be soon soon, I hope. 🙂
Regarding the margarita sherbert, I admit my husband doesn't use an actual recipe...we have a 1.5 quart electric ice cream maker, and he just pours some bottled margarita mix into the canister, adds a bit of ice-cold evaporated milk and/or ice water and keeps adding the bottled mix and the milk or water until the liquid reaches the fill line and, as he says, "it looks right". He'll taste it now and then, sometimes add a dribble of honey if the mix is too tart. Then he turns the noisy "monster" on to do its work, and put the canister in the freezer to firm up the mixture when it is done churning, unless you prefer soft serve. 🙂 This isn't much help but that's how he does it. No measuring or anything, just goes by taste and how the mixture looks. Basically it is a giant virgin margarita, although bottled daiquiri mix might work too. 🙂 Tends to be icy and melts quickly but it tastes pretty good. My sweetheart can create magic with fresh fruit puree or some juice and just a little bit of milk. 🙂
dawn says
that frosting sounds divine!
Louise says
So Fuzz is getting a taste for virgin Daiquiris. She has a long wait for the alcoholic type. 😉
Anna says
CL, I think sherbert or sorbet would be great! The booze is only in the icing so the margarita flavor, while detectable, is fairly subtle. A margarita sorbet would be fabulous.
Speaking of which, could you share that margarita sorbet recipe?
My teenage cousin turned Fuzz on to Baskin Robbins' Daiquiri ice (which tastes more like margarita, if you ask me) and she loves it. Unfortunately, every time we've gone to Baskin Robbins they've told us to wait because it was a summer item.
C L (Rancher'sWife) says
I've been on the hunt for a summertime cake because DH and I are hosting a BBQ soon and this sounds like it might hit the spot for everyone. "Margarita" should get their attention! LOL 😉 Would freshly churned margarita-flavored sherbert or sorbet served alongside be overkill? 🙂
Anna says
Thanks for all the nice comments. LilSis, I hope you try this one and feel that it is a good addition to your margarita repertoire :).
LilSis says
Anna,
I'm so glad you posted this recipe! It sounds great! We are getting ready to do a roundup of Margarita related recipes on our blog. I was already going to include your fantastic Margarita Pie that you did recently, and this one will definitely be on our list, too!
Pearl says
ooh that sounds like a cake my mother may like!
Katrina says
I recently made a coconut lime cake that was really good. Love the lime flavor in it. Your bundt looks so good.
Jeanette says
This sounds so good! I can't wait to try it!
CPB says
Yummy! Now I know what to make for Mother's Day. Can't wait to try it. Thanks for sharing.
Anna says
Hi Zen,
Thanks so much for the award! I don't usually collect or distribute awards, but I am truly grateful for the recognition and am looking forward to checking out your blog.
JB, cake flour has less protein and will give you a more tender cake. Also, it measures differently than all purpose so if you decide to use the all purpose anyway, you'd need to adjust your measurements accordingly. The usual cake flour substitution is 1 3/4 cup all purpose flour plus 1/4 cornstarch for every 2 cups cake flour. In this recipe, the cake flour is measured after sifting so you'd mix your flour and cornstarch as written above, then sift to make it light, then measure. After you measure, you should have a little left over which you can throw out.
If you have a scale, you can just mix your 1 3/4 cup all purpose with 1/4 cup cornstarch, sift, then weigh out 215 grams/7.6 oz and toss out the rest. I think that would work. Now hopefully you have cornstarch!
JB says
Do you have to use cake flour, I never have anything but AP flour around?
Zen says
I love your blog and I've passed down the Honest Scrap Award down to you. Check out my blog to see what it is and to accept it. I can't wait to see your future postings.
Qte says
this sounds amazing. i love the lime taste in cakes and will try this next. thanks. love, Qte.