This Root Beer Float Poke Cake is the delicious creamy taste of a root beer float in cake form!

close up of square piece of brown cake with two scoops of vanilla frosting on top and a cherry, picture says "root beer float poke cake"

Poke cakes are a really fun and easy dessert idea. You simply bake up a cake in a 9 by 13 inch pan, and then poke some holes in it. Fill those holes with something like fudge sauce, caramel, or sweetened condensed milk and enjoy!

One of my favorite parts about them is that they can be made into all sorts of different flavors. This Root Beer Float Poke Cake is just one of so many variations that are amazing.

How to Make Root Beer Float Poke Cake

This is a brief overview of this simple recipe. For the full recipe with all of the measurements, see the recipe card at the bottom of the post.

Mix up the cake batter. I use cake mix for this recipe and it works perfectly.
Add in the root beer concentrate. Read more about this below.
Bake the cake. After baking, poke holes in the cake, and fill them with sweetened condensed milk.
Serve and enjoy. I love serving this with ice cream on top instead of frosting, but both would be great.

two pieces of root beer float poke cake on white plates

Root Beer Concentrate

This fun little ingredient is essential for the this recipe. When I was first developing this recipe I thought that I could just replace the water that the cake mix calls for with root beer. While that tasted good and did work, you could still primarily taste the cake and not the root beer.

Then I switched and used the root beer concentrate. It worked perfectly, and when combined with the sweetened condensed milk you really got that delicious and frothy root beer float flavor.

You can find near the extracts in the grocery store or you can buy it on Amazon.

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Root Beer Concentrate

This is a great way of bringing root beer flavor to a recipe!

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Frosting

Most poke cakes use a whipped topping or stabilized whipped cream for a topping. Because this is flavored like a root beer float, vanilla ice cream seemed like the most appropriate topping. That being said, you should do what sounds best to you!

Storing

Store your poke cake in the refrigerator for up to four days. I like to store mine in the pan that I baked it in and covered with aluminum foil. As with all recipes, use your best discretion when it comes to leftovers.

piece of cake with ice cream and cherry on top

More Delicious Poke Cakes

If you try this poke cake recipe or any of my other recipes, leave a comment and let me know what you think!

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Root Beer Float Poke Cake

Serves: pieces

(tap # to scale)

Prep: 10

Cook: 28

Total: 38

This Root Beer Float Poke Cake is the delicious creamy taste of a root beer float in cake form!

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Ingredients

13.25 ounces vanilla cake mix plus the ingredients the mix calls for
1 1/2 teaspoon Root Beer concentrate
14 ounces of sweetened condensed milk
vanilla ice cream

Instructions

Preheat your oven to what is suggested on the box (for me that was 350).
Mix your cake mix according to the instructions, adding in 1 1/2 teaspoon root beer concentrate.
Bake the cake according to the instructions (for me that was 28 minutes). Let the cake rest for about 10 minutes after you take it out of the oven. Then poke holes throughout the cake using the bottom of a wooden spoon.
Pour the sweetened condensed milk over the cake, filling all of the holes as evenly as possible.
Cover and refrigerate the cake overnight. Serve with vanilla ice cream.

Nutrition Information

Author: Lisa Longley

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

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Root Beer Float Poke Cake

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Root Beer Float Poke Cake

How to Make Root Beer Float Poke Cake