Bring this to your next pot luck and watch it become your signature dessert

Cooktop Cove: Bring this to your next pot luck and watch it become your signature dessert

By Robin Donovan

If there’s one thing they know in the south, it’s how to bake a delicious cake. This one does not disappoint. It starts with a cake mix, but just a few transitions turn it into a truly noteworthy dessert.

This cake is easy to make and always garners rave reviews at parties, holiday celebrations and potlucks. Make it once, and everyone will be begging you to make it again and again. Don’t let the coconut in the frosting scare you off if you’re not a coconut lover. You hardly taste it, but it does lend a nutty backdrop that intensifies the flavor of the pecans.

Southern pecan cake

10 minutes

40 minutes

50 minutes

Nonstick cooking spray

1 15-ounce container coconut pecan frosting

4 large eggs

3/4 cup vegetable oil

1 cup water

1 15 1/4-ounce box butter pecan cake mix

1 cup pecans, toasted and chopped, divided

1 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

Heat the oven to 350 F and spray a 9-by-13-inch baking dish with nonstick cooking spray.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the frosting, eggs and oil, and whisk together.

Add the water and mix to combine.

Add half the cake mix, and whisk it in before adding the second half of the cake mix and mixing well.

Stir in 1/2 cup of the pecans.

Transfer the batter to the prepared baking dish.

Bake for 40 minutes, until the top is golden brown and the cake pulls away from the sides.

Remove the pan from the oven, and let it cool on a wire rack.

While the cake is cooling, make the topping. In a small saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter and stir it together with the sweetened condensed milk.

Add the remaining 1/2 cup of pecans, and stir to combine.

Once the cake has cooled, pour the topping over the top.

Serve at room temperature.