My Momo (maternal grandmother) was known for many things: three-time cancer survivor, expert at rhyming sailor talk, delicious chili, Hummel collection held together by gobs of superglue thanks to grandchildren who broke almost every figurine, the best St. Francis volunteer coordinator ever, and lemon icebox cake.
It's moist, with a little crispy glaze. Cold. Lemony. Perfect.
I make no apologies that it includes a lemon cake mix from a box (gasp!) because I've never had a from-scratch lemon cake even approaching the perfection that is lemon icebox cake.
Now, the recipe is for cake. And I've never failed with the cake. But this time I wanted to make some cupcakes for Jonathan to share with the office. His boss recently welcomed a second son (after welcoming the first less than a year ago), and I'll take any excuse to bake some lemony love in June.
There was a learning curve on the cupcakes. I baked the first batch a little too long. I overfilled the cups on the next batch (pictured above - yeah, I know you should only fill cupcake papers halfway...), and just when I was feeling discouraged I got into the groove and the rest came out great. One recipe makes about 30 regular-sized cupcakes with a few mini cupcakes thrown in for good measure. This is more than the box tells you it'll make, but you're also doctoring the box recipe quite a bit. So if you want to do cupcakes, just watch your time carefully. You want a golden-yellow cupcake and it has to pass the relatively clean toothpick test.
Now, mom might tell me to censor this post because I'm sharing a family recipe... but I can't help but share the magic of my Momo's cake. Enjoy!
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Momo's Lemon Icebox Cake
CAKE:
1 box lemon cake mix
1 box lemon jello, dissolved
4 whole eggs
3/4 cup oil
1 tablespoon juice
GLAZE:
1 cup powdered sugar
3 tbsp. lemon juice
Preheat oven to 350. Mix up all the cake ingredients. You probably want to make sure the dissolved jello mix isn't boiling hot when you add it, or you'll cook the eggs. Dump it into a greased 9x13 cake pan and bake for about 30 minutes, watching closely.
While it's baking, mix up the glaze. Adjust amounts there as necessary for a thicker or thinner glaze. (With the cupcakes, I made the glaze pretty thick so I could just dip the tops in the glaze, after pouring a thinner glaze into holes I poked into the cakes).
When the cake comes out of the oven, take a fork or toothpick or whatever's handy and poke a bunch of holes in the top. Pour the glaze all over it and put it in the fridge.
Best served cool, on a hot summer day.
It's moist, with a little crispy glaze. Cold. Lemony. Perfect.
I make no apologies that it includes a lemon cake mix from a box (gasp!) because I've never had a from-scratch lemon cake even approaching the perfection that is lemon icebox cake.
Now, the recipe is for cake. And I've never failed with the cake. But this time I wanted to make some cupcakes for Jonathan to share with the office. His boss recently welcomed a second son (after welcoming the first less than a year ago), and I'll take any excuse to bake some lemony love in June.
There was a learning curve on the cupcakes. I baked the first batch a little too long. I overfilled the cups on the next batch (pictured above - yeah, I know you should only fill cupcake papers halfway...), and just when I was feeling discouraged I got into the groove and the rest came out great. One recipe makes about 30 regular-sized cupcakes with a few mini cupcakes thrown in for good measure. This is more than the box tells you it'll make, but you're also doctoring the box recipe quite a bit. So if you want to do cupcakes, just watch your time carefully. You want a golden-yellow cupcake and it has to pass the relatively clean toothpick test.
Now, mom might tell me to censor this post because I'm sharing a family recipe... but I can't help but share the magic of my Momo's cake. Enjoy!
------
Momo's Lemon Icebox Cake
CAKE:
1 box lemon cake mix
1 box lemon jello, dissolved
4 whole eggs
3/4 cup oil
1 tablespoon juice
GLAZE:
1 cup powdered sugar
3 tbsp. lemon juice
Preheat oven to 350. Mix up all the cake ingredients. You probably want to make sure the dissolved jello mix isn't boiling hot when you add it, or you'll cook the eggs. Dump it into a greased 9x13 cake pan and bake for about 30 minutes, watching closely.
While it's baking, mix up the glaze. Adjust amounts there as necessary for a thicker or thinner glaze. (With the cupcakes, I made the glaze pretty thick so I could just dip the tops in the glaze, after pouring a thinner glaze into holes I poked into the cakes).
When the cake comes out of the oven, take a fork or toothpick or whatever's handy and poke a bunch of holes in the top. Pour the glaze all over it and put it in the fridge.
Best served cool, on a hot summer day.
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