A couple of years ago, my mom came to visit us for her birthday. In an effort to make her a special birthday treat, I came up with this key lime bundt cake with a chocolate drizzle. I don’t get to see her often, anyway, but the “Stay Home” order has me missing her even more.

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My mom has probably liked key lime pie longer than I remember, but the rest of our little family got on board when we took a little trip down to Key West back in 1996. It was our first vacation with my little sister, and in general, we had a pretty good time.

A Pin for You! Lime Bundt Cake with Chocolate Drizzle

My First Taste of Key Lime Pie

One of our favorite stories from that trip was going snorkeling… or rather, Dad going snorkeling. Mom wanted to go so badly, but by the time the boat got out to the water, baby Beth was passed out on her lap and I was scared of sharks.

So, Dad wandered out on his own with a waterproof camera, took tons of pictures, and came back for Mom to take a turn. She finally got me and Beth settled with Dad and got all her gear on. No sooner had she dipped a toe into the ocean than the storm clouds rolled in and the captain called everyone back so we could head to shore.

Not a great day for the Mama Llama. But in a day-saving turn, we stumbled across this little place with a cooler full of frozen, chocolate-covered, key lime pie on a stick. I’ll be the first to admit that I hate the fruit cream chocolates in a box of candy. It’s weird. Just give me peanut butter or caramel.

However, the custardy smooth texture of the key lime pie was like sherbet wrapped in buttery graham cracker crumbs and blanketed with dark chocolate. It wasn’t overwhelmingly sweet, and it satisfied almost every craving you could have. Sweet, sour, chocolatey, buttery, creamy, and just a little salty.

Since then, Mom will opt for key lime pie over chocolate cake any day.

My Mom and Key Lime Pie

Last year for Mom’s birthday, my sister and her then-boyfriend (now-husband) lovingly hand squeezed two pounds of teeny tiny key limes for enough juice to make two homemade key lime pies. I supervised… but mostly made them do the grunt work.

Seriously, Bethy was hand-whisking that custard for five minutes even after harvesting lime juice for over an hour. And it turned out amazing! But, I am still waiting for her revenge…

The year we bought our first house, my parents came out for Mom’s birthday. So, I thought I’d play around with the key lime pie covered in chocolate. But since I had been going pie-crazy lately, and we had done the key lime pie the year before, I figured I would make her a pretty lime bundt cake.

Technically, this recipe could be doubled to fill your bundt pan up a little more. You’d get more cake. Since there were four of us, I figured I’d go smaller scale. We still got 16 slices out of it.

Delicious lime bundt cake isn't the same without chocolate drizzle and lime zest sprinkles

Coming Up with a Good Recipe for Lime Bundt Cake

I started with researching lemon bundt cakes to see how most other food bloggers were getting a non-crumbly texture and kind of mixed in the things I knew already about key lime pie filling.

I start out similarly to making key lime custard, but I opted for regular limes instead. Honestly, they do have a slightly different flavor, but in the long run, it’s easier to juice them and takes so much less time (especially when you don’t have two other people to help you get through all the little baby limes).

Starting with sugar, melted coconut oil, and eggs, you whisk until you’ve got what nearly looks like a custard (which is probably about five minutes). In the pie filling, this is when you would add the sweetened condensed milk.

But for the moist crumb of this cake, I went for nonfat plain Greek yogurt instead. Once that is fully whisked in, it really does look like custard! I thought that was pretty fun, and you won’t believe the great texture you come out with because of this base.

The reasoning behind starting with custard is very similar to those cake mixes that boast pudding in the mix. It makes your cake very moist and tender.

Why I Love Lime Bundt Cake!

The texture is dense like a pound cake, but you won’t have needed a pound of butter or a pound of sugar to make it. It’s moist with no crumbling. I love it when you can cut into it with your fork and it stays put.

But the wonderful thing is the fragrance of the lime throughout. It provides the perfect tanginess to balance out the dark chocolate. Mom and I were even picking off the little drops of dark chocolate that landed on the parchment paper with lime zest on them for a treat while the chocolate drizzle set in the fridge.

I don’t know what else to say: Limes and dark chocolate just play well together. Anyways, you need this cake in your life.

How Do I Properly Prepare a Bundt Pan?

Okay, so I know I’m full of stories, but I have to tell you one more story. This one doesn’t relate to my mom or lime bundt cake though. This story is about my 30th birthday and my husband’s attempt to make me a cake.

How Not to Flour a Bundt

In the past, he has made this delicious funfetti cake with chocolate drizzle. However, on the occasion of my birthday, he was a new dad home with a 2-month-old baby while I went to Weight Watchers and yoga. He decided that since she’d gone down for a nap, he’d bang out a cake real quick.

The instructions said to butter and flour the pan. Unfortunately, we didn’t have butter; we just had oil, so he oiled the pan and sprinkled in some flour. Half an hour into my yoga class, he called me very upset and told me to come right now. The cake had stuck miserably to the pan, and he had thrown it in the trash.

Now, let’s be real: it smelled amazing. I would have eaten that messed up mangled mess. Heck, we could have even turned it into some cake pops. Instead, I let him have a breakdown (because we have ALL been there, am I right?), and we went to Aldi for more ingredients.

Juice freshly squeezed from real limes along with their sour zest are the true stars of this lime bundt cake with chocolate drizzle

My Favorite Way to Flour a Bundt

Okay, so that said, I have tried two ways to flour a bundt that work. The first is to spray it down with Pam + Flour. It’s really easy and you get fantastic coverage into all the nooks and crannies of the most intricate bundt pan.

The other way is this. Start with a pad of softened butter held in your two “peace sign” fingers. Rub the entire pan down, careful to dig into every narrow place. Leave no crevice unbuttered. Then, using a small sieve, dust the pan. This will help to prevent clumps.

But the key is to thoroughly coat it all with flour. Then, tilt the pan to toss the loose flour around. You want to make sure that there is a fine coating of flour in every little nook and not a single patch of unbuttered, unfloured surface. When it’s well and coated, hold it upturned over your sink and smack it to knock any loose flour out.

Your pan is now prepared. Tada! And just in case you’re curious, this is my favorite bundt pan. I think it’s classically beautiful and just intricate enough to look really special.

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