Mountain Dew Goodness.

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Instead of celebrating with green beer, or a funky green colored dessert, I thought I would try my hand at a simple recipe I found in a local fund raising cookbook. You do know what I'm talking about, right? Local churches and organizations gather recipes from members and sell their not-so top secret recipes as a fund raising project. Whether it be for the church youth group, or a Relay for Life team, those little cookbooks always find themselves a home inside my mom's vast collection of cookbooks. If you're looking for the good stuff your best bet is to skip the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook edition and go straight for a local church cookbook. They are my absolute favorite. I photocopied the recipe a while back, and cannot remember the exact cookbook I got the recipe from, but I do remember it being a local church group. From the build-up one might think I've just created the most elaborate masterpiece ever to come out of an electric oven, but it's just a very simple recipe. Presenting the Mountain Dew Cake.

Fresh out of the oven.

Here's the easy as pie recipe:

1 box lemon cake mix
1 small box lemon instant pudding
4 eggs
3/4 c. oil
1 12 oz. can of Mountain Dew

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix together first four ingredients. Mixture will be very thick. Add the Mountain Dew and mix very well. Mixture will be quite thin now. Pour into well greased Bundt pan and bake 45 to 60 minutes. (My oven tends to run very hot and my cake was cooked perfectly after 48 minutes, but as always adjust time according to your own oven. Trial and error.)

I suppose to further celebrate St. Patty's Day I could have added a little green food coloring to the cake batter and although experts claim you can't taste the food coloring I tend to think it does slightly alter the taste. I'm sure it's my imagination and it's simply the color tricking the brain, but I didn't want to risk it. The way I see it the Mountain Dew can is green so it's a perfectly acceptable St. Patrick's Day dessert on that premise alone.

One could make a lemon glaze to cover the cake, but I opted to sprinkle the cake with a nice layer of powdered sugar. It ultimately comes down to baker's preference since both options are good. :) The Mountain Dew appears to give the cake a moister and slightly sticky texture, but the taste is really no different than that of a regular lemon pound cake. I suppose it's a good thing I like lemon pound cake.

Yum-O. Warm lemon goodness smothered in powdered sugar.

So how did you celebrate on this fine St. Patrick's Day? Green beer? Green eggs and ham? Or corned beef and cabbage? My mom actually made the latter and from what I understand it's a traditional Irish meal. I had tacos... the extreme opposite. :) However, my dessert was slightly more St. Patrick's Day appropriate. Remember... the Mountain Dew was in a green can. :) Enjoy the rest of your St. Patty's Day and if you're having green beer, have one for me.... Cheers!