Top-rated radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh has one of the most lucrative deals in broadcasting history, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and could certainly afford any birthday cake he wants. However, when longtime staff and friends recently presented him on the air with a "White Trash" Cake for his 58th birthday, the veteran broadcaster gasped in glee and exclaimed, "We love 'White Trash' Cakes here!"

Apparently, a gaggle of his 20 million-plus weekly listeners wanted to know what "White Trash" Cake was. Besides e-mailing the host, they seem to have searched the term online — at least some of them who hadn't heard him proclaim the cake his "favorite" on his birthday two years ago.

"I usually get 75 hits a day on my site on my current postings," said Rockport, Mass.-based Melissa Palladino of "Melissa Cooks Gourmet," her culinary blog that comes up high in a Google search of the term "White Trash Cake." "On Jan. 12 of this year (Limbaugh's birthday), I got 2,500 hits on my old 2007 'White Trash' Cake posting. I didn't know what was going on!"

"White Trash" Cake was a perfect choice for Limbaugh's busy staff to have bestowed on their boss, who just celebrated his 20th anniversary on the air. It's a cake where little effort provides maximum flavor and can be easily dressed up for a birthday bash. Until her ex-husband dubbed it "White Trash" Cake, in Palladino's home — and her mother's before that — it was always known simply as "The Birthday Cake" and customized for every family member's big day.

Similarly, online "White Trash Cake" shows up throughout cyberspace as a popular birthday item. Traditionally, "White Trash" Cake is also known as "Dump Cake," a dessert where you just dump an ingredient — like cherry pie filling or chopped canned pineapples — in a 9-inch-by-13-inch baking pan and dump cake mix and a few other ingredients on top of it before baking and spreading with frosting or topping with CoolWhip. Other renditions also show up online in photographs, such as a graham cracker and marshmallow duplicate of a trailer park mobile home. Or a tray of open Pabst Blue Ribbon beers lined up to resemble a birthday cake, brightly lit with fat dinner candles, and presented to the guest of honor.

Palladino's version, though, deserves notoriety. In addition to being an award-winning writer and artist, she's a longtime private chef, currently working on a Massachusetts estate. In her blog (http://melissacooksgourmet.blogspot.com), noted by the Wall Street Journal as a top pick, she's been reporting on cooking every one of the 1,300 recipes in the fat "The Gourmet Cookbook," which includes Gourmet magazine's best recipes and techniques. In her 2007 posting, she wrote about both "The Gourmet Cookbook's" chichi cappuccino brownies as well as her family's "White Trash" Cake.

"I made a three-word mention in passing of 'White Trash' Cake in an earlier posting, and one of my readers, who has a cake blog of her own, contacted me and said something like, "I'm intrigued. What's 'White Trash' Cake? Please tell us. We MUST know!" said Palladino.

For as long as she could remember, "White Trash" Cake had been prepared for every family member's birthday by her mother Billie Hruby. First, the birthday boy or girl picks their favorite flavors of cake mix, gelatin and pudding. A cake is baked from the mix, holes are poked in it and filled with gelatin and then it's put in the refrigerator to set. Pudding is then spread over the top and the cake is cooled until somewhat set. Lastly, the whole thing is slathered with CoolWhip.

"The fun thing is that each recipient could pick their own unique combinations, and it's so easy the kids — or now grandkids — could always help to make it," said Hruby, a military wife who moved the family every few years and thinks she got the recipe during one of many swaps among military spouses. "I was ultra busy always moving and raising kids, so it was also the perfect simple cake to be able to do fast with ingredients from anywhere."

Palladino's favorite choice is the rich combination of chocolate cake mix, cherry gelatin and chocolate pudding. However, other family member's selections ran the gamut. Palladino makes it for a great-granddaughter, who lives on the estate where she works as a private chef and whose birthday is on Fourth of July. It is a yellow sheet cake with blueberry and raspberry gelatin interspersed inside — when it's cut it's got red and blue stripes. She tops the CoolWhip with fresh blueberries and strawberries lined up to look like the stars and stripes of the U.S. flag.

Easy, fun decorations are a hallmark of "White Trash" Cakes. Limbaugh's staff included a big "singing candle" on his — a candle product that "sings" "Happy Birthday" until it's blown out. Simplicity is key.

Sandra Lee, of TV and best-selling cookbook "Semi-Homemade" fame, fondly remembers her grandmother Lorraine's cake-mix birthday spectaculars. They were flavored with raspberry extract and white cranberry juice, instead of gelatin, and used preformed cake flowers in the recipient's favorite colors as decorating shortcuts.

"WHITE TRASH" CAKE

Cake mix flavor of recipient's choice

Gelatin flavor of recipient's choice

Pudding flavor of recipient's choice

CoolWhip to cover finished cake

Yields vary based on sizes of products selected.

Bake the cake in a sheet pan, according to package directions. When it comes out of the oven, poke many holes in it with a skewer. Pour hot liquid gelatin prepared according to package instructions (but using only half of the water called for) into the holes. Place in refrigerator until gelatin is set.

Meanwhile, mix up pudding, according to package instructions (or use pre-made packaged pudding). After gelatin has set, spread pudding over top of cake and cool in refrigerator until pudding is somewhat set. Slather with CoolWhip and decorate with your choice of items, like candles, sprinkles and fresh fruit.

— http://melissacooksgourmet.blogspot.com

GRANDMA LORRAINE'S SINGLE-LAYER BIRTHDAY CAKE

1 (18.25-ounce) yellow cake mix

2 eggs

1/3 cup vegetable oil

2 1/2 teaspoons raspberry extract, divided

1/2 cup white cranberry juice

1 (16-ounce) can white frosting

1 (6-ounce) pouch pink writing icings

Flower and letter candy decorations

Candy rainbow sprinkles

Yields 2 single-layer cakes.

Bake 2 (8-inch) cakes according to package directions, except for the addition of 1 1/2 teaspoons raspberry extract to the batter and substituting white cranberry juice for water. Let cakes cool completely. Transfer each cake to an inverted 9-inch pie tin.

Add 1 teaspoon of raspberry extract to frosting and combine thoroughly. Frost each cake. Use a star tip to pipe pink icing around the bottom of each cake where it meets the pie tin. Decorate with candy flowers, lettering and sprinkles.

Variation: Aforementioned cake might be considered feminine. For a more neutral variation, consider substituting chocolate cake mix, almond or mint extract, chocolate frosting, white writing icing, sports ball candies and shredded coconut mixed with green food coloring.

— "Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade Cooking 3: Simple, Speedy & Flavorful Favorites that Taste Like They're Made from Scratch" (Meredith, $19.95).

Lisa Messinger is a first-place winner in food writing from the Association of Food Journalists and the author of seven food books, including "Mrs. Cubbison's Best Stuffing Cookbook" and "The Sourdough Bread Bowl Cookbook." She also writes the Creators News Service "Cooks' Books" column. To find out more about Lisa Messinger and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.