Joy to the Food

0 Preheat the oven to 350 and spray or line a 9x9 pan. Set the cream cheese and butter out to come to room temperature. Crush crème cookies so they are not quite sand texture and still have some small chunks; set them aside.
1 Make the vanilla cake as directed and bake as directed by package.
2 Remove the cake when a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Let the cake cool and come to room temperature before topping with frosting or removing it from the tray. To speed this up, you can place the cake in the freezer or fridge. Just be sure to check on it every half hour or so to keep it from drying out or freezing.
3 While the cake is cooling, make the frosting. Use a hand mixer to beat the lemon juice, lemon zest, cream cheese, powdered sugar, vanilla, and butter in a medium bowl until fluffy. Feel free to add a couple of drops of pink food coloring to this for extra brightness! If the butter is not incorporated fully, check out our Joy Tip above for how to bring butter to room temperature quickly. Or just set the bowl in the sun for a while to let the butter warm up. Once the frosting is made, set it in the refrigerator until ready to assemble.
4 Make the crumble crunch topping by melting the butter and combining it with the crushed crème cookies and jello mix. This is easiest in a food processor, but can also be done in a large bowl. Set crunch mixture aside until ready to use.
5 Once the cake is cool, take the frosting out of the fridge to come to room temperature while you work on assembling. You may need to beat it once more to bring it back to frosting consistency.
6 Using a wide straw, piping tip, or spoon to poke 12 holes in the cake (this will be for the filling!). Snack away on these cake bites that have been removed!
7 Spoon in or pipe in the lemon curd into each hole.
8 Spread the frosting evenly on the cake and top with crunch mixture topping.
9 Cut the cake into 12 pieces that align with where your curd is.