A Summer Treat

     Wow, it’s hot out! 105 in Wyoming! The forecast warns us it will be this way for a few days more.

     I have a summer dilemma which is; bring a Birthday Cake to a party for a family member. Ugh.

     I drag out my 3 ring binder where I keep all my much loved recipes. Some are my mom’s and grandma’s favorites passed on to me. After a while of looking at cakes that leave me uninspired, I stumble upon a cardboard back to a cake mix box stuffed into a plastic page sleeve. It’s a recipe for Lemon Lime Poke Cake. Visions of refrigerated lemon cake with ribbons of cool lime Jell-O and a fluffy, chilled pudding-like topping waft over me. This is it! 

     Off I go to the only grocery store in town sweltering in the car because the store is only 5 blocks away and the a/c won’t have time to replace the hot air with cool air. Have you figured out that I really don’t like broiling in the summer? You’ll hear me complain of -30 in the winter and blizzards, too. Nothing pleases me below 65 degrees and above 75 but that’s for other posts.

     This is a very easy recipe. Bake cake in a 9x11 dish. Cool. Poke rows of holes, evenly spaced, in the cake with the handle of a spoon to make an opening for the Jello. Prepare Jello following the quick method so the Jello is slightly thickened. Follow directions on instant pudding box and when done fold in the Cool Whip. Use mixture for frosting cake. Place in refrigerator to keep cool. That’s it. Easy, huh?

(Ingredients for your own Poke Cake listed below)
(This works with any flavor cake and jello)

1 cake mix, lemon
1 Lg box lime Jell-O
1 Lg box vanilla instant pudding mix
1 regular size container Cool Whip

     As I look around the store, I find NO lemon cake mix and NO Lime Jello not even small boxes. Nothing. It makes me wonder if everyone in town has a copy of this recipe! I don’t want any other flavor. My taste buds are set for lemon-lime.

     I have to go out of town. At least I’ll get cooled off driving 27 miles one way to the closest town with a big chain grocery store.

     I call hubby on my cell to ask if he wants to go with me. Nope. Not in this scorching heat was my answer. 

     So off I go. It was fun singing along to 60s music with the a/c blowing out the vents as I drove along the front range of the mountains. 

     Once at the store I planned a quick trip in and out. I’d be on my way home in minutes. That was the thought before I found a bunch of stuff to buy. Since I’m at a store with many more choices than our hometown store I spend over $100 dollars. 2 hours from the time I left, I arrive home. Of course, I call hubby to help me drag in the food. He teases me by saying, “That’s gonna be some cake.”  As he grasps the watermelon and a bag of cantaloupe he laughs all the way to the kitchen.

     Waking at five o’clock the next morning isn’t high on my exciting things to do list, but a necessary evil if I expect to use the oven and live in my apartment. There isn’t an apartment in this tiny town that has central air, so a window a/c unit does fine—but can’t hold its own against an oven!

     Within an hour my cake is finished. It’s quite easy to assemble, but darn, small town life on the frontier of Wyoming sometimes is a challenge. One thing’s for sure, I won’t have to go out of town grocery shopping this weekend. LOL.

     Oh yes! The birthday party was a success but the house where it was located didn’t even have a window a/c. Ugh. The cool Poke Cake was a hit though!