Yield
12 servings
Ready In:
4-6 hours
About this Recipe
By: Sarah Cegelski
This is the Apffel family’s way of making strawberry poke cake.
Ingredients
- 1 boxed yellow cake mix, + the eggs, oil, and water to make it
- 1 box of instant strawberry Jell-o mix, + boiling and cold water to make it
- 1 box of instant vanilla Jell-o pudding mix, plus the cold milk to make it
- One 16 oz container of frozen sliced strawberries in syrup
- 1 family-size container of Cool Whip
- Sliced fresh strawberries, for garnish
Overnight, thaw the frozen sliced strawberries in syrup and the family-size Cool Whip in the refrigerator.
Prepare the boxed cake mix according to the directions on the box in a 9×13 pan.
While you are waiting cake to bake, prepare the vanilla Jell-o pudding according to the directions on the box. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate until read to use.
When the cake is finished baking, allow it to cool for 15-20 minutes. While you are waiting for it to cool, prepare the strawberry Jell-o mixture according to the instructions on the box. This will involve combining the gelatin with the boiling water and then the cool water, but not refrigerating the mixture.
Gently poke the cake with a small metal paring knife at one-inch intervals. (I have found this avoids tearing giant holes into the warm cake). Slowly spoon the warm strawberry Jell-o liquid onto the cake, allowing it to soak in. Yes, all of it. Be sure to get all the way to the edges. You might look at it when you are finished and think, this is going to be a mushy mess. I promise, it’s not! Spoon the thawed, sliced strawberries in their syrup over the top of the cake. Yes, all of it. Yes, it is a lot of liquid. Yes, it will look like it’s going to be a mushy mess. I promise, it’s not! Cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate at least one hour.
Remove the cake from the refrigerator. Carefully spread the vanilla pudding over the top of the strawberries in syrup layer. The strawberries and vanilla pudding will sort of meld together. This is fine.
Finally, carefully spread the Cool Whip over the top of the vanilla pudding layer until it is completely covered; it’s best to do big dollops of Cool Whip, and then connect them together with a spatula, to avoid the Cool Whip and vanilla pudding layer smushing together. You will not need the whole container, just use enough to cover the top and make it look pretty. (One regular-sized container of Cool Whip is juuuuuust enough and makes it hard to keep the pudding out of the Cool Whip layer.) Refrigerate the layered cake about 2-4 hours, or overnight.
Just before serving, garnish with sliced fresh strawberries so that everyone knows what hides underneath that beautiful fluffy white layer of Cool Whip.
