Strawberry Cheesecake Poke Cake

Strawberry Cheesecake Poke Cake is a super simple recipe that your family will love. Using cheesecake pudding and strawberry Jello, this recipe easily and quickly creates the flavors of strawberry cheesecake in a delicious and pretty dessert that’s easy to make and is always a big hit with everyone.

Strawberry cheesecake is a classic dessert flavor that almost everyone loves. The same can be said of pretty much any poke cake ever made. We’ve made both more times than we can count. One day, when we were at the store, we saw a package of cheesecake pudding, and that got our wheels turning. What if we combined both of those great desserts into one super dessert? And thus, strawberry cheesecake poke cake was born.

Everybody knows we love simple easy desserts. You can’t get any easier than this delicious dessert. I mean cake mix desserts are great to begin with then adding to them makes them even better!

Time’s Delicious Recipe for Strawberry Cheesecake Poke Cake

And we don’t mean the magazine. We mean time itself. This dessert is the product of three specific things. Without even one of them, this delicious poke cake would not exist. Those are cheesecake, poke cake, and cake itself. After all poke cake is a variation of a traditional cake.

These three individual foods are the basis for our delicious recipe, so we want to take a minute to talk about each of them.

History of Cake

Traditionally, a cake is a sweet baked food made from flour, sugar, and various other ingredients. In their oldest and simplest form, cakes were actually modified bread. These days cakes are made in more ways than you can count, being as simple or as complex as the baker wishes. We even call certain dessert cakes that aren’t actually cakes, strictly speaking.

The cake has been around for centuries. The word cake itself is actually Viking in origin, coming from the ancient Norse word kaka. Ancient Greek called this baked good plakous. Believe it or not, Romans called cakes placenta.

Cakes remained nothing more than sweetened bread even until their earliest appearance in England. The first “modern” cake, the sponge cake was invented during the Renaissance period. Most food historians agree that this probably happened in Spain.

Over the years, the traditional cake has been tweaked, changed, and revamped millions of times to create all sorts of cake variations from trifles using sponge cake to, you guessed it, poke cake. Speaking of poke cake…

History of Poke Cake

This variation on the cake is relatively new and was made specifically to sell a product. However, this recipe is still around because it makes cakes oh, so moist. So let’s see where it came from.

A poke cake is the product of 70s marketing. Originally created to boost sales for Jello, which was lagging at the time, poke cake was pure marketings.

Full-page ads for the new poke cake began appearing in all the usual periodicals that women read in the 70s like Redbook and Ladies Home Journal, touting the new cake innovation.

Poke cake quickly became the new favorite of housewives everywhere because of how easy it was to make, and soon these cakes became a staple of potlucks, holiday gatherings, and backyard bashes.

Fast forward to today, and although poke cake was devised in a board room rather than a kitchen, it’s stood the test of time. You’ll find an absolutely mind-boggling array of poke cakes online including this delicious strawberry cheesecake poke cake. Oh, and while we’re talking about cheesecake.

History of Cheesecake

Cheesecake has a long, long history. In its earliest forms, cheesecake is mentioned by Aegimu, a 5th century BC physician. A later, more closely related version called sambocade can be found in Forme of Cury, an English cookbook from 1390.

Because of its similarity to modern cheesecake and its mention in Forme of Cury, many food historians credit England as the birthplace of modern cheesecake.

Over hundreds of years, Europeans began removing the yeast that was a common ingredient in the earliest modern cheesecake recipe and began adding beaten eggs instead. Around the 18th century, with the overpowering yeast flavor done away with, cheesecake became more of what it is today.

The cheesecake that we all make today is the result of the creation of commercially available American cream cheese. Developed in 1872 by William Lawrence who was looking for a way to recreate Neufchatel, cream cheese is the result of Lawrence creating an “unripened cheese”.

Strawberry Cheesecake Poke Cake

The best thing about poke cake is how easy it is to make, so when we discovered instant cheesecake pudding, we knew that we had to put them together. The flavors of strawberry cheesecake made from two boxes of easy-to-make dessert products were the perfect addition to a poke cake base. We knew it would be delicious, and we were right!

This strawberry cheesecake poke cake is such a simple recipe, and it’s filled with such delicious flavors, it’s always a winner for both you and your guests. Serve it up as a weeknight dessert, at potlucks and summer get-togethers, or even as a holiday dessert. There’s never a wrong time to make this cake!

Ingredients

It only takes a handful of ingredients to make this delicious poke cake. With just six ingredients, you’ll have everything you need to make one of the tastiest and easiest recipes you’ve ever made! Here’s what you’ll need.

• White cake mix
• Strawberry Jello
• Fresh or frozen strawberries in sugar
• Instant cheesecake pudding
• Cold milk
• Cool Whip

That’s all there is to it. You can probably already see that this is an exceedingly simple recipe just from looking at the ingredients. But just wait until you see how it’s made.

Making the Cake

Making this delicious strawberry cheesecake poke cake is just as simple as the ingredient list. It only takes a few minutes and almost zero effort to bring it all together.

You’ll find the complete recipe complete with amounts in the recipe card at the end of the post, but for now, we want to give you a quick overview of how it all comes together.

• Bake the cake in a 9×13 pan per box directions.
• Allow the cake to cool completely.
• Poke holes all over the cake with a fork.
• Pour strawberry Jello over the cake and refrigerate.
• Mix strawberries into prepared cheesecake pudding and spread over the cake. Refrigerate.
• Spread the Cool Whip over the cake and refrigerate.
• Enjoy!

Talk about easy! The only actual cooking you’ll do is making a boxed cake and boiling water for the Jello. It doesn’t get easier than that!

Variations

The great thing about poke cakes is that you can change them up so easily, and that’s no different with this strawberry cheesecake poke cake. With only two tweaks you can create entirely different recipes by simply using this recipe as a base.

Change the Cake

This recipe calls for white cake, but you can use any cake you like. For even more strawberry flavor, you could use strawberry cake. A vanilla cake would work well for this recipe. So would a yellow cake. Or a butter cake too!

Go further, and you can begin creating an entirely different poke cake recipe with these instructions by changing the cake to anything you desire. There are tons of cake mixes in the baking aisle, so it’s easy to get creative.

Change the Jello

Changing the Jello is another great way to completely revamp this recipe. When you change the pudding, you’ll be creating an entirely new recipe. Pair any kind of cake mix with any kind of Jello you like to create an entirely new dish.

The baking aisle has flavors ranging from traditional flavors like strawberry to more tropical things like lemon or lime or even pineapple. Get creative and have fun!

Change the Pudding

Finally, we come to the pudding. Changing it up is another excellent way to get creative and use this base to make an entirely new recipe. Literally, any pudding will work because you can pair it with all kinds of other flavors available for Jello and cake. The possibilities are endless!

We love cheesecake pudding so tend try to find cake mixes and jello that will go well with that. Flavor wise it’s really up to you.

Serving Strawberry Cheesecake Poke Cake

This cake is pure deliciousness all on its own, and because it’s already topped with Cool Whip, there’s no reason to add a thing. All you need to serve this cake is a plate and a knife! Just add a glass of milk, and you’re all set.

Storing Strawberry Cheesecake Poke Cake

This cake will keep well in the refrigerator in an air-tight container for up to five days. For longer storage, you can freeze the cake for up to four months. To freeze it, cover the cake in its original dish to keep it safe from the air and just stick it in the freezer. Defrost it in the refrigerator, and you’ll be all set.

Give This Strawberry Cheesecake Poke Cake a Try

Make this strawberry cheesecake poke cake just one time, and we guarantee it will be a staple in your dessert recipe rotation. It’s so simple to make and filled with such delicious flavors, you’ll find yourself making it more and more. So whip up a batch. Your family will love it!

PIN IT!!

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