Pink Lemonade Mini Cakes
Years of watching Court TV and real life murder mystery shows has made me realize that I’d make a horrible witness.
Most of the time, I can barely even tell you details about what is going on around me. And my husband drives anytime we go anywhere together, so there are literally dozens of places that I don’t know the directions to. My husband gets all, “how can you not know where that is, we’ve been there LOTS of times” and I’m all, “YOU drove so why would I be looking at the roads, roads are boring”.
I think it makes perfect sense, but whatevs.
Deep down though, I feel that it is my destiny to be deeply embroiled in some type of murder plot (embroiled is a crime-ish word, serious detectives use it a lot on TV), so lately I’ve been trying to improve my witness skills by taking note of odd things I notice around me.
Unfortunately, the part of my brain that is supposed to be good at remembering license plate numbers and facial features of strangers doesn’t work very well. It’s a little upsetting because once again, my body is betraying me. Very much like the time I just knew I was meant to be a gymnast but to my dismay, I couldn’t even perform a simple cartwheel.
If only my thoughts and my actual body could get on the same page, I would truly be a force to reckon with.
The other morning, my husband came inside from starting his truck and told me that he’d just heard a gunshot. At first we were like, “no biggie”, but then I remembered that we live in the CITY now, with real neighbors and sanitation trucks that come to pick up the trash and all that. And in the CITY people aren’t supposed to be shooting guns all willy nilly.
So I was like “WHAT?! It’s 7:44 AM . REMEMBER THAT!! It’s 7:44 and we remember that because I was looking at the Today Show and you had just started your truck to leave for work. Do you think we should call the police?! Or 911?! Okay, what are we wearing? We might need to remember that for some reason. Every detail MATTERS!!!”
Then he told me that he wasn’t sure that it really was a gun shot and it came from the direction of the woods. So I went from being a world famous prosecuting attorney to a mere housewife in seconds. Which, I realize that your husband hearing a fake gunshot doesn’t make a woman an attorney TECHNICALLY, but it’s close enough that I think we can just round up or whatever.
You know what I mean.
So, since I’m back to being a normal housewife, I thought I’d show you how to make something really cool. You know…to help inflate my sense of self importance.
Let’s make mini cakes, want to?
I’ve been loving mini cakes for awhile now. They’re individually sized, but more elegant than a cupcake, so they’d be a really fun brunch or shower dessert.
Well. Guess what? All this time I’ve been looking for tiny cake pans, I finally realized something: Just bake the cake in a sheet pan so it’s super thin, then cut the rounds with a round cookie or biscuit cutter!! So easy peasy. You can stack them up by the twos or threes for fun little cakes with minimal effort.
Isn’t that a good trick? Can you even BELIEVE I figure stuff like that out AND still manage to practice law in my spare time?
These would be great make with Limeade concentrate and green food coloring for St. Patrick’s Day too.Pink Lemonade Mini Cakes
INGREDIENTS
- 1 box Duncan Hines Moist Deluxe Classic White Cake Mix
- 12 oz can Pink Lemonade concentrate, thawed and divided into 1 cup and 1/4 cup
- 1/3 cup water
- 2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
- 3 eggs
- A couple drops red food coloring
- Frosting:
- 1 8 oz block of cream cheese, softened
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
- 1/4 cup Pink Lemonade Concentrate (divided from above)
- 4 cups powdered sugar
- Sanding sugar, optional
INSTRUCTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 350. Butter and flour a large sheet pan or jelly roll pan (13×18 inches) and set aside.
2. In the bowl of a mixer, combine cake mix, lemonade concentrate, water, oil and eggs. Beat on low speed for about a minute. Increase speed to medium and beat for 2 minutes more. Add a drop or two of red food coloring, folding in until batter is a deep shade of pink. Spread batter in prepared pan and bake for about 15 minutes, until the middle springs back when lightly touched. Remove cake and let cool in the pan on a rack until room temperature. For easier cutting, refrigerate for an hour or two.
3. Prepare frosting: In the bowl of a mixer, combine cream cheese, butter, and lemonade concentrate. Beat on medium low until combined. Slowly add powdered sugar, beating on low until just mixed. Increase speed to high and beat for 2 minutes until light and fluffy.
4. Cut cake into rounds and frost, stacking an additional cake on top. Stack as tall as you desire. Sprinkle with sanding sugar.
Enjoy and have a Happy Monday!!
Thanks for visiting my blog! I realize you could be doing more important things with your time. Like watching the news or washing socks. I hope you stay awhile. Much more fun than socks, I promise. 
You are so darn cute ;-)
Love these cakes and their pink, YAY!! I am obsessed with true crime, in fact right now I am watching Snapped on Oxygen channel. I watch Court TV constantly. I think someday I am going to catch a weirdo who I’ve seen on TV that has kidnapped someone etc…a girl can dream anyway. Thanks for the laughs and the recipes!!
I LOVE these!! one question, about how many 3 layer cakes can you get out of one cake mix?? I need to make around 60 or so, just wondered how many cake mixes to buy
It really depends on how large your circles are. But if you use roughly a 2 1/2 inch round, you should get about 10 cakes.
Thank you! i am doing a trial run with the lime ones tomorrow for st. patty’s! can’t wait to see how cute they turn out!
Yay, so cute! Like cupcake petit fours. Perfect accompaniments to any crime show!
I am salivating, Kristan! I love pink lemonade and the color of these is amazing. Love, love, love!
Such a better idea to make the cake in a sheet pan than to invest in mini pans!
And I can not remember directions to anywhere for the life of me. I depend on my husband or the GPS 99% of the time.
You always ALWAYS make me smile!!
How cauuute are these? Perfect for crime fighters!
Man this is such a good idea!! love the photos :)
I am great with getting around! I can be a passenger and know how to get back again on my own days later. My issue is that I watch landmarks, not street names or signs. This makes me terrible at giving directions! I’m like, go straight until you see the funky tree with the broken limb, then turn 2 streets after that. I know where I’m going!
I just saw that Pillsbury had Pink Lemonade cake mix and frosting in the store… I may have to cheat….
So adorable!!
I was so sure you were going to say you baked them in a can! Ha! I am SO going to try making it your way. My granddaughters are spending the next weekend and I think they’d love have a mini cake just their size! Yup this is a GREAT idea, thanks!!!
So cute and I bet they’re delicious too!!
Oooh, may have to bring these out for Easter. Some yellow and some pink would be soo cute! Thanks for sharing.
That is so smart! I am definitely going to try your cut it out of a sheet trick. Thanks!
I’ve seen some pink lemonade cookies recipes floating around pinterest and now you make me wanna make these, like…tomorrow!
I like your idea for pink lemonade mini cakes and I don’t know if you know this but Pillbury has a pink lemonade cake mix, frosting and cookie mix so with your ideas and my mix gives me some ideas!
lovely! i saw somewhere online that you can also bake mini cylinder cakes in washed out cans (like, the kind that previously held canned corn, etc)!
your lawyer tv comments had me laughing out loud. my husband and i really like crime drama tv shows, which has served to make me terrified of parking garage structures. because, you know, all sorts of abductions and attacks happen in parking garages. ;)
Pretty!!!! And lemony? Want.
Cool – a fellow crime fighter who loves to bake! Love your mini-cakes and what a great solution! Problem-solving and crime detective skills go together, don’t they? LOL! <3
xoxo
Joy
Very girlie and those CSI people better look out!
These are adorable!
So adorable!! What is on top? Looks like lemon slices, but not sure. Thank you.
It’s candy!! They’re pink grapefruit slices I found at Candy Craze.
Gorgeous photos. Your idea of cutting pieces from a sheet cake and stacking them is so right on!. I was at a high-end bakery recently and they told me they do the same thing. (Think of all the leftover pieces you get to nibble on!) I have to admit that even I, in my grey-haired years, tend to get rather imaginative at times and potential crime is a favorite. For instance, each time I walk across a nearby bridge, I look down to the water for bodies and compose an entire crime before I reach the other side. Hope you continue to have what appears to be great fun with your thoughts and your cooking.
AFter many an episode of Unsolved Mysteries I, also, try and note the time in case I am a “star witness” in a high profile criminal case. It makes sense that we are friends.
I love ur blog. Always brings a smile or a tear (from laughing so hard). And don’t feel bad, my ex use to be the same. HOW DO U NOT KNOW WHERE WE’RE AT? Um..I’m sorry I’m not driving so I don’t care lol. It’s ok, it’s a woman thang :)
I love the fun pink color! Super cute!
*If only my thoughts and my actual body could get on the same page, I would truly be a force to reckon with.* Ha! You have no idea how much that resonated with me :)
These little cakes are adorable.
Mmmm, pink lemonade. I’ve not had some pink lemonade for years now. I remember my parents always used to buy it in summer and we’d always sit in the garden playing in the paddling pool with our glasses of pink lemonade. My mum always used to sugar the top of the glass too. Memories!!
Also, just wanted to let you know that I linked to your blog from my blog too. I love your blog and felt it was definitely link worthy on mine. :)
Keep on baking and posting! :)
-Lisa.
I’ve long dreamed of being embroiled in a murder investigation myself, as I’m certain I would be the case-cracking witness, and super helpful. There is always this moment, though, where I realize that it probably would be far from glamorous in reality. I try to put those thoughts aside. Murder investigations are cool.
I was actually planning to make a lemonade cake sometime in the next month. I pinned a recipe for a lemonade pound cake made in a bundt pan, but your mini cakes are WAY cuter!
Maybe I can put my non-existent witness skills to use another way. “It was 9 am on Monday morning when I found the recipe for lemonade mini-cakes. I remember because my kid just left for school, and I was still tired from the Daylight Savings time change. I didn’t make the cake that day, because I didn’t have any lemonade in the house, and was SICK and TIRED of the grocery store.”
What a great idea! These are so cute, and so much better than dealing with tons of mini pans!
so cute!! And all this time I’ve wanted to make mini cakes and I never thought of the sheet pan, cookie cutter thing either. Think of the possibilities! You could have heart shaped mini cakes!
So springy and adorable and fun! Love your musings too :)
It made me smile to read that you made your hubby german chocolate cupcakes for his bday! Love ‘em! :)
Mmmm… I love pink lemonade!!
I’m always trying to be a better witness too. I suck at that. Apparently I am not a very mindful person…probably because I am always distracted with things like your minicakes. Yum. And I LOVE the color. Gorgeous.
You’re getting all fancy on me with these lovely little cakes! Do you know that I definitely try to force myself into dreams of being a crime investigator? Really. I don’t know if it’s because if I don’t dream about that, then I know I’ll be having nightmares about tornadoes or else of my husband cheating on me with Mariah Carey (yes, I do dream about that). lol. So, I figured, if I can be a crime investigator in my dreams, then neither one of those nightmares will pop up. Or, maybe it’s because in my other life I really am a crime investigator and I’m really right now dreaming about being a blogger? Who knows? Either life is pretty dang cool. ;)
I’ve totally been working on my witness skills. Actually in the past month we witnessed bad crashes and I was the first call to the police. I was all worried that I had to remember every little detail if they ever called back. But they never did, so I was ok haha. Loving these mini cakes! Especially loving all the pink!
I saw these over the weekend and thought they looked good. And THEN I couldn’t stop thinking about them. And I realized I am IN LOVE with pink lemonade and I have to try these immediately. Well, I mean, as soon as I can find a place to buy pink lemonade concentrate. Which roughly translates into — I am going to be obsessed with finding pink lemonade concentrate so I can make these.
These are so cute! :D
I can barely remember my name; being a witness would not be good for me either! I love little cakes and thanks for the tip about baking them thin!
Well … I’m glad you are not a crime scene witness or attorney … you would never have the time to make such cute little cakes! I believe you are smart to make the sheet cake and cut it up. I used to work in a cake supply store and those tiny cake pans are very pricey and you have to buy so many of them.
My husband is addicted to the ID channel, so I’m always thinking I’msurrounded by murderers and rapists now. So I pay attention to EVERYTHING! And I keep my distance. And run away often. That channel is not healthy to watch!
But these cakes? LOVE!
So cute! Have pinned it! Thanks!
First of all, I love the mini-cake idea. super cute. Second of all, I do that too – checking the time when I hear weird noises like potential gun-shots. Too much TV for both of us I guess!
Mini cakes, what an AWESOME idea! And your sheet pan and cutter idea, even better. They are also gorgeous and I love that I’ll be able to make something similar and still enjoy it gluten and dairy free. Thank you! Perfect for Easter. :)
I too pay absolutely no attention when my husband is driving us. What’s the point? That’s the relaxing part of having someone else drive. My sister in law looked at me like I was nuts when I told her I couldn’t remember how to get to her house 45 minutes from here in the “woods”, even though I’d probably been there a minimum of 10 times… What can I say? On the way there I was busy looking at sheep and wondering why people in the “woods” pack so much crap into their yards, and paint their houses Easter egg colors instead of keeping them rustic and woodsy-like…
But in my defense, my sister in law is a woman who remembers freeway exit names and numbers from other states she’s visited. Who does that?
What a terrific idea! And these little cakes are simply gorgeous. I, too, pay attention to the time when something even remotely crime-ish occurs. And I’m always trying to memorize license plates whenever a car acts “suspicious.” Glad it’s not just me!
These are so incredibly cute!! I’m a sucker for anything pink. :-D
Hum they look great!!! Loved pink lemonade cupcakes so these must be so good!
First off…I LOVE these cakes. Love.
Second…is it a girl thing not to notice things? My husband could name every car on our block. He’ll say something like, “you know, the house the the 1998 Navy Blue Dodge Caravan, on the other side of the street, 5 houses down?” Um, no. BUT, like you, if I hear something suspicious, I ALWAYS try to remember to TIME!!! I blame the OJ trial. Of course, you were 3 when that happened, but maybe you’ve seen footage. ;) Good stuff.
[...] saw these cute little mini cakes on Kristan’s [hilarious] blog Confessions of a Cookbook Queen. I knew [...]
So darn cute I had to “pin” it!
[...] Pink lemonade mini cakes via Confessions of a Cookbook Queen linkwithin_text='You may also like:' NO COMMENTS ◄ Older Post [...]
I just made a pink lemonade cake — but completely forgot about your recipe! I made mine with a yellow cake and added lots of Meyer lemon zest plus some of the juice. For the frosting I used cream cheese and whipping cream which I tinted pink then sprinked with multi-colored sprinkes. Looks adorable but still haven’t tasted it. Next time — your recipe!
I have a magnet in my head. I can find my way anywhere. I was at the Kennedy Space Center parking lot (which must be 10 sqare miles) with a cousin who paniced because she’d forgotton where she’d parked. I was, don’t worry, I know exactly where the car is. I’m like a homing pigeon. Minus the feathers.
Remind me to tell you about the time I was behind a robber at the bank. (It’s a long story.) The best part was when the FBI agent (swoon, so cute) came to my house. I could tell him EVERYTHING. Did you know FBI agents are clean? When you look up “clean-cut” in the dictionary there must be a picture of an FBI agent. Do they shower three times a day? Keep freshly starched shirts in their cars?
Love this idea and I tasted the cake it is delicious, thanks! Making them for a “pink” party to celebrate a woman done with her chemo and radiation tonight!
[...] Pink Lemonade Mini Cakes From Confessions Of A Cookbook Queen [...]
I found these on Pinterest- I am looking for ideas for my daughter’s “Sunshine and Lemonade Soiree”- my question is, can you bake these as cupcakes or have you tried? I think it might be easier for little ones to eat than a little layer cake.
I made this recipe today and made cupcakes out of them! My daughter snuck another cupcake because she thought they were SO GOOD! I didn’t use the recipe for frosting as I didn’t want the cream cheese. I made a pink lemonade butter cream using the remainder pink lemonade concentrate. It turned out wonderful! I found the little pectin lemon and lime candies and some that had pink centers and topped them with 1/4 of one! They were so cute!
Thanks for the recipe to build on! This one is a gem!