Crock Pot Cake

With out realizing it my good friend Karrie over at Mules N Honey gave me a challenge. For those of you who don't know, Karrie has been living in a 320 square foot RV with her husband and FOUR kids for like 5 years now while they are building their house. Karrie asked me the other day if I had ever baked a cake in my crock pot. She had tried and didn't have the best results so she wanted to know if I had any hints. Now I am sure you are asking yourself, "Why on earth would you want to bake a cake in a crock pot and not just use your oven?" Well for starters, Karrie has no oven. Second, using an oven makes your house like, HOT!! Three, why not? I had heard of it being done, but had never tried it myself, which is surprising since I am a huge crock pot fanatic. I have been tossing this unspoken "challenge" around in my head for a few days now. Well today I did it. I baked a lemon cake in my crock pot and it is ....GOOOOD! Incredibly moist and yummy. Mine didn't turn out super pretty because when I was inverting it onto my plate, we had an emergency, so I had to kinda drop it all and it all fell to pieces. Also I have a hot spot in my crock that always burns everything, so I had a three inch span of the very outer part of the cake that got too done on one side. Even with all that, the cake was a hit. I just served up the pieces drizzled with a little glaze and a squirt of whipped cream. Here is what I did:

Lemon Crock Pot Cake

1 Box of lemon cake mix (or flavor of you choice)
1 Box of instant pudding (which I failed to use because I was interrupted)
8 Ounces Sour Cream
4 Eggs
3/4 cup oil
1 Cup water

Mix all ingredients in mixer on low for thirty seconds. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl down and mix on med/high speed for two minutes. Pour batter into a greased crock. (I just used PAM) Turn crock pot on high. Cover with lid, vented very slightly to help let out condensation but keep in the heat. Cook 3-4 hours on high or 6-8 on low until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out mostly clean, carefully rotating crock half way through for more even cooking. (My crock is oval so I rotated once, if you have a round crock rotate a quarter turn every 45 minutes or so). When done remove crock from base, take off lid and let sit for fifteen minutes before trying to invert it onto your serving platter. (Or skip that all together and serve from the crock)

Glaze:

1 Cup powdered sugar
Juice from 1/2 a lemon
Two drops almond extract (because I like it, use vanilla if you like)

Stir all ingredients together until smooth, you may need to add a couple drops of water if it is too thick, or more sugar if it is too thin. Drizzle over warm (NOT HOT) cake.

The cake will be a little darker on the edges and very moist on top and the top will not brown like it will in the oven. Also, my crock is a 7 quart Rival. It is missing one and a half of its three legs, and it is OLD, and scribbled on with sharpy and the handle is missing... so if my 'ol pot can do it so can yours! If you are using a smaller diameter crock, you might want to only use part of your batter so the cake cooks all the way through without burning on the outside. Next time I will try my smaller one and let you know how it goes, it is currently holding the baked beans I made yesterday for tomorrow's Happy Birthday Michael and America party that will not be happening now that we are having tummy troubles.