When you’re looking for a cake to make, a few shortcut ingredients can go a long way to making your life easier, but that doesn’t mean your cake has to taste like it came from a box. This Raspberry Fluff Cake is the best of both worlds — it takes a helping hand from boxed mix and a packet of jello but it also brings in real raspberries so it tastes as fresh as can be. And it looks it too — just look at that vibrant pink hue!

This cake works really well because you’re using a few legs up in the kitchen but it’s not all shortcuts (so it doesn’t taste like it). You’ll need a box of white cake mix, some oil, some eggs, a box of raspberry jello, and a bag of frozen raspberries. You’ll want to thaw those raspberries — some of them get mixed into the cake and some get mixed into the topping.

It’s a cake that takes about five minutes to mix up. You beat the jello powder, eggs, and oil into the cake mix (along with some hot water too) and then mix in the thawed raspberries. Thawed, frozen raspberries work well here because they kind of dissolve into the batter — we don’t want chunks of raspberries, we want all over raspberry flavor. (Spoiler alert — we sure get it!)

And we get it in the topping too, which is perhaps my favorite part of this cake. See, I’m partial to a whipped cream frosting and that’s all this is, but it’s doctored up with some raspberry flavor. Just beat some heavy whipping cream and powdered sugar until you’ve got stiff peaks, and then fold in the rest of the thawed raspberries.

You get a pretty pink whipped topping that tastes far better than anything that comes out of a tub in the freezer section and it only takes you a couple of minutes to make. Spread that over the cake and then let it chill for a couple of hours until you’re ready to serve.

If you’re in a time crunch, you don’t absolutely have to chill this, but it helps a bit with slicing and also with letting the raspberry flavor truly assimilate to their surroundings.