This Cherry Limeade Pound Cake is a fun and delicious cake for summer. There are plenty of fresh cherries in this buttery pound cake, and they pair wonderfully with the flavor of lime! Watch the video showing you how to make this Cherry Limeade Pound Cake, then scroll to the bottom of this post to print out the recipe so you can bake it at home!
My family usually spends a good chunk of the summer vacationing on the beach in Massachusetts. We relax and read books, we search for sea glass and swim in the ocean and we eat… we eat a lot.
We eat Maple Leaf hot dogs on New England-style hot dog rolls. We eat crinkle-cut salt and vinegar chips. We eat loads of lobster and chowder and fried clams. We eat soft serve ice cream with rainbow jimmies. We eat fresh corn salad and local blueberries. We eat watermelon and nectarines.
And most of all– we eat loads and loads of fresh cherries!
Cherry Limeade Pound Cake
One summer on our New England vacation, I took some of those fresh cherries, and I baked them into a Cherry Limeade Pound Cake.
It may sound glamorous and all… staying in a beach house for a couple of weeks. Trust me, it’s not as glamorous as you might imagine. It’s an extremely rustic place we stay in. No TV. No air conditioning. No internet! And no cherry pitter. I have a solution for that!
How do you pit cherries without a cherry pitter?
If you don’t have a cherry pitting tool, don’t worry because you don’t really need to spend the money to buy one. Use a straw to pit cherries! Just hold the cherry securely on a paper towel and pop the straw straight through the top. The pit will come right out! It’s a bit time consuming to pit cherries, but it’s completely worth it in the end for this cake.
I’m not a soda drinker at all… just the occasional orange soda or root beer. But on a hot summer vacation, I like to drink Cherry-flavored 7-Up. This is some good stuff, and it’s what I put in this Cherry Limeade Pound Cake.
The cake turns out to be a typical dense pound cake, flavored with plenty of lime and chopped fresh cherries, and then drizzled with more limey glaze.
The flavors in the Cherry Limeade Pound Cake remind me of Sonic Drive In’s Cherry-Limeade, that heavenly drink that I only discovered last summer on our family’s cross country road trip.
Here’s a heavenly slice of the pound cake. It’s tender and full of that lemon-lime flavor with a hint of cherry. And it is always quite the big beach-house hit.
If you’re looking for more cake recipes, you might also enjoy this Chocolate Sheet Cake or a Moist Vanilla Cake. Irish Cream Bundt Cake and Rainbow Swirl Cake are also delicious choices!
Cherry Limeade Pound Cake
Ingredients
CAKE:
- 3 cups all purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1½ cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 3 cups granulated white sugar
- 1½ teaspoons freshly grated lime zest
- 5 large eggs
- 3/4 cup Cherry 7-Up
- 2 cups pitted and quartered sweet fresh cherries
GLAZE:
- 1¼ cups powdered sugar, sifted
- 2 tablespoons Cherry 7-Up
- 1½½ teaspoons freshly grated lime zest
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Grease and flour a 12-cup bundt cake or tube pan.
PREPARE THE CAKE:
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour and salt. In a large bowl, use an electric mixer to cream together the butter and sugar. Add the lime zest. Beat in the eggs one at a time, until each is well incorporated. Mix in 1/3 of the flour mixture at a time, alternating with the 7-Up. Stir in the cherries.
- Scoop the batter into the prepared pan. Tap the pan on the counter several times to rid the batter of any air bubbles. Bake 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until a sharp, thin knife inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Place the pan on a wire rack and let cool for 20 minutes, then place a serving plate over the top and gently flip over. Give the bottom of the pan a few taps if you need to loosen the cake from the pan. Let the cake cool completely on the serving platter before topping with the glaze.
PREPARE THE GLAZE:
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the glaze ingredients until smooth. Drizzle over the cooled cake.
Notes
- *If you only have regular 7-Up, Sprite, or even generic lemon-lime soda on hand, go ahead and use that- but add in a splash of maraschino cherry juice to make it a cherry flavored soda- and make sure it still comes out to 3/4 cup. For the glaze, use 1 tablespoons of soda + 1/2 tablespoon juice.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
This looks fantastic, and your beach vacation sounds divine. What a way to unplug. I would love that. Curious where you stay in MA–is it the Cape? The islands?
We stay north of the Cape- south shore of Boston 🙂
Hi Lori
Can you use frozen cherries in this recipe.
I haven’t tried it with frozen cherries, but it would probably be okay.
I just wanted to drop a note that this is the 3rd year I’ve made this cake following your recipe. I look forward to the time each year when cherries are on sale because I know it means I get to make this cake. Even the batter is divine. This cake is a hit no matter where I bring it. I make at least 4 each summer. Usually if I bring it somewhere new, it gets ignored for a while because people think it’s just a plain poundcake. But once word gets out that it is a cherry limeade cake, it’s gone within minutes. Thank you so much for sharing this recipe. It’s in my recipe box, and my children will make it for their children!
That’s so fun to hear- thank you!
I’m pretty excited about the cherry pitting tip…I had cherry juice everywhere the last time I had to pit them! I’m going to try the straw and see if that works better…
Well, trying to cut into a cherry with a knife is a bit tough. It’s much easier to get the pit out first!
… So, just a question, what’s the point of pitting the cherries with a straw? I mean, you’re just going to quarter them anyways, isn’t that just a useless step?
NO A/C? Uggg. I might die. But this cake would certainly bring me back to life!!!
Lori, what a fun and intriguing recipe. LOVE the homemade cherry pitter. We just got home from a similar vacation. I had to drive 20 minutes into a little town to wifi twice a week. 🙂
I love your straw idea. The cake looks fabulous. I’d love to spend a few weeks in a beach house.
It was delicious! I will definitely make it myself!