This is the ugly cake that you dismiss while scoping out the dessert table of the potluck as you’re loading up your Chinet plate with mac and cheese, fried chicken, and coleslaw. By the time you’re done eating, there are nothing but crumbs where the ugly cake once stood. Life lesson here – looks aren’t everything. Yeah, that cake with the fondant could have held it’s own on the pages of Bon Appétit, but this cake is the one you’re cutting slices of at midnight, diet be damned. Meet my new favorite – Mandarin orange pineapple cake!
- 1 box Duncan Hines Butter Cake mix
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 1 – 11 oz. can mandarin oranges
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 4 large eggs
- 1 – 12 oz. container of Cool Whip
- 1 – 3.4 oz. instant vanilla pudding mix
- 1 – 16 oz. can crushed pineapple
- Preheat oven to 350º. Grease 3 – 9″ cake pans, and line with wax paper or parchment, set aside.
- In a large bowl, combine cake mix, oil, oranges with juice, sugar, and eggs – mix at medium speed for 2 minutes. Divide among the three pans and bake for 20 minutes, test with a toothpick. Cool in the pans for 15 minutes, then remove cakes from pans and continue to cool on a wire rack.
- For the icing, drain the juice from the pineapple and set aside. Save the juice in the event that the icing seems too thick, you can use some of the juice to thin it out
- Mix the pineapple with the pudding mix, then stir in the Cool Whip. Frost the cake and store in the refrigerator.
