King Cake Poke Cake - a fun twist on a traditional king cake. Cinnamon roll stuffed cake topped with a brown sugar cinnamon syrup and cream cheese frosting. Super simple to make and tastes great. One bite and you will be blown away! Yellow cake mix, brown sugar, cinnamon, pecans, sweetened condensed milk, cream cheese, powdered sugar, and cool whip. Can make in advance and refrigerate for up to 4 days. The cake is a must for your Mardi Gras celebrations!
Prepare cake mix according to the directions on the package.
Pour half of the cake batter in the bottom of a lightly greased 9x13-inch pan. Combine 1 cup of brown sugar, 3 teaspoons of cinnamon, and pecans. Sprinkle over cake batter. Spread the remaining cake batter over the cinnamon sugar layer.
Bake the cake according to the package directions.
While cake is baking, mix together sweetened condensed milk, ½ cup brown sugar, melted butter, and 1 teaspoon of cinnamon. When the cake is done and while it's still hot, poke holes in it with a fork or straw. Pour milk mixture over the cake. Allow cake to cool completely.
Frosting
Beat softened cream cheese and powdered sugar until smooth. Gently stir in cool whip.
Spread cream cheese frosting over the top. Chill.
Notes:
I use yellow cake mix. Feel free to use any cake flavor that you enjoy.
Use the end of a spoon handle, spatula, or chopstick to poke the holes in the cake. You want the holes to be fairly large to have the sweetened condensed milk into the holes. A fork will not make big enough holes.
Sometimes I add a pinch of nutmeg to the brown sugar filling.
Don't like nuts? You can leave them out.
I topped the cake with green, gold, and purple sprinkles. Green stands for faith, purple stands for justice, and gold for power.
If you aren't celebrating mardi gras, you can use any color of sprinkles or leave them off altogether.
Here are the sprinkles that I used on top of the cake in the photos: https://amzn.to/30nGrLn
It is a king cake tradition to hide a plastic baby figurine in the cake. Whoever finds the baby in their slice of cake is said to have good luck and has to bring the king caketo next year's party.