Simply Citrus Cream Cake (gluten-free)

On Sunday, we had some great friends over for lunch. Eric and Molly are one of our favorite couples. I've known Eric since he was a wee lad, and he and Molly make a wonderful duo.

Molly is the first person I knew with Celiac disease and she's really one of the reasons I was so inspired into looking into gluten-free. I was excited to have her over, but also had to make sure everything was just right since there was no room for error here. I couldn't be responsible for her health. Yikes!

I made some Smoky Tomato Bacon Pasta for lunch (I'll share the recipe also), but one of the big things that would be/is tough to go without is obviously desserts. I mentioned making Simply Citrus Cream Cake in my post about going gluten-free, and I decided to make it for Molly & Eric.

I've had others ask for this recipe as well, so thought it'd be easiest to post it here.

You will need:

• 1 or 2 pkgs of gluten-free yellow cake mix (you need 2 layers & most GF packages only make one layer so you may need to buy a 2nd box. I HIGHLY recommend Betty Crocker's GF yellow cake mix, but Whole Foods did not carry it.)
  
• 1 pkg (3.4 oz) Jello lemon instant pudding mix (I know for sure that Kraft Jello mix is GF)
• 1 1/3 cups organic sour cream, divided
• 3/4 cup water
• 1/4 cup oil
• 3 eggs (look how colorful my farm fresh eggs are!)
• 2 T. orange zest (1 medium orange)
• 1/4 cup powder sugar
• 1 tub Cool Whip, thawed (I used a Whole Foods GF whipped cream, but I know Cool Whip is GF)
• 1 can organic mandarin oranges, drained

NOTES:

*I have found that most organic items are GF

*You can always use regular ingredients if GF is not your thing.

*Please take notice of my little measuring cup of powder sugar. I had 2 bags of powder sugar in my cabinet and went to look at the label just to double check and was shocked to find that it had a wheat starch in it to keep the sugar from sticking! I was blown away! So, I searched the web for what to do and it just said I could make my own. I'm quite embarrassed that I didn't know how to make my own powdered sugar. Maybe I missed Cooking 101. You just take your sugar and stick it in the blender and let it do it's thing for about a minute. So...how neat is that? I tried my food processor at first and the blades just weren't able to get down low enough for the small amount I was making. I also came to find out that my 2nd bag in my cupboard used corn starch, so it would've been OK to use, but I got a special learning moment.

As a side note, the 1st bag was from the "Evil Empire", so I have yet another reason to dislike them...they sell cheap food because they use cheaper ingredients. Sorry, I'll get off of my soapbox.

Anyway.............

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Beat the cake mix, dry pudding mix, only 1 cup of the sour cream, the water, oil, eggs, and orange zest in a large bowl with a mixer on low speed for 1 minute. Scrape down the bowl. Beat on medium for 2 minutes.

Pour mix into 2 greased 9 inch pans (In the past, I've floured my pans but just greasing them worked fine).

The packages say to bake for 25-30 minutes, but since there are 2 cakes and I have found that GF baking takes a bit longer, I would say it'd be closer to 45-50 minutes. However, keep checking it and use the toothpick to test to figure out if it's done.

The smell in my house while these were baking was HEAVENLY! At one point, I stopped and thought about the smell almost reminded me of the way it smells when you first walk into Baskin-Robbins. Weird, right? You can definitely smell the citrus.

My kitchen helper, Guinness, waits patiently and hopes to get a bite.


Let the cakes cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Next, invert the cakes on a cooling rack and let them cool completely.

You can go ahead and get your cream icing ready now.

Whisk the remaining 1/3 sour cream & the powdered sugar together in a large bowl. Fold in the Cool Whip.

Now for the layers! Place one cooled cake on the bottom. Place a little less than half of the cream on the cake. Spread evenly. Add half of the mandarin oranges on top of the cream. Repeat the layers and be sure to ice around the outside of the cake. I've just done cream in between and on the top before, but I liked this better.


Keep this cake refrigerated until you are ready to eat.

This picture's a little dark, but you can see that we enjoyed it! It is such a yummy cake! Molly did say that one of the things that she's missed is the Starbucks lemon pound cake and that this was the closest to it since she's been without gluten. So...WIN! I love Sbux lemon pound cake and I love this cake, I'd just never thought of that before!

It does have a pound cake feel to it and Mark and I agree that it's always better the next day. He enjoys it most for breakfast!

This recipe is great for the summer time and it's even better because it's gluten-free!

Enjoy!!!