So here’s the thing about a poke cake — you literally poke holes all over it so that the frosting or glaze or filling that you pour over the top soaks down right into the very cake itself. Genius, right? And with this Butter Pecan Praline Poke Cake, you’re going to want every little bit of that glaze you can get. It’s a sweet, buttery, gooey dessert — the kind of deliciously sticky thing you find yourself craving all the time. But good news! Thanks to a few kitchen shortcuts, it’s also a super easy dessert to make.

For birthdays, holidays, and the like, I very rarely turn to boxed cake mix and canned frosting, but they have a time and a place. And that time and place is here. Think of it like you’re “doctoring” up this mix a bit — then it’s not just a boxed cake and the few tricks you use on it make it taste much more homemade. For one delicious cake and frosting/glaze, you only need eight ingredients. That’s pretty darn good.

First things first, you’re going to mix together a box of butter pecan cake mix with a can of coconut pecan frosting. Weird, I know, but just go with it. You’re also going to add four eggs to that, as well as some vegetable oil and milk.

Bake it up in a 9×13 pan and then do another thing that you might find a little strange — poke holes all over it. I like using the end of a wooden spoon for this purpose but any number of kitchen tools will work. You just want the holes to be a pretty good size so that the glaze/frosting can find its way down into the cake. That is the purpose of all those holes, anyway.

While the cake cools, you can make the glaze. (It’s thicker than a glaze, but not quite a frosting, but we’ll just call it the former.) In a saucepan, simmer some butter and sweetened condensed milk and then stir in some chopped pecans. (Easy, right?) Pour it alllll over the cake while it’s still plenty warm…

… and it will find its way down into every nook and cranny.

That means you don’t just get a basic cake topped with frosting, you get a cake that has ooey-gooey goodness all the way through. And while most things sticky and sweet are worth praise, this one is extra deserving thanks to that signature butter pecan praline flavor. This is one cake you won’t soon forget!