Two early wayward efforts from the otherwise excellent Leon Osman paved the way for a game of hit the crowd, which seemingly every Toffees player wanted to be involved in.
Kevin Kilbane, Phil Neville, Mikel Arteta and even Tony Hibbert tried their luck, firing a string of pot shots hopelessly high and wide.
In a dire first half Cahill should have given the Blues a lead, but glanced his 12-yard header well wide. James Beattie powered a thunderous free-kick into the stands after 25 minutes and should have converted Osman's cross shot minutes before the break.
David Moyes shuffled his pack at half-time moving Osman up front alongside Beattie and pushing Arteta out wide on the right.
The change almost paid dividends inside ten minutes as the superb Osman jinked and twisted inside the Millwall box, before clipping a pristine cross towards Cahill, who powered a bullet header straight at Andy Marshall.
On the hour Kilbane missed the best chance of the lot when he found himself five yards out with the goal at his mercy, but clipped his finish the wrong side of the post.
Just as the Goodison faithful had begun to think the gods were well and truly against them up popped Cahill with his fourth goal of the season.
Good work from Arteta set Beattie off down the right and his scuffed cut-back was angled in by the left foot of the midfielder.
Normal service was resumed from the re-start however as the dogged Neville nodded another Beattie cross goalwards, only to see it rebound agonisingly back off the inside of the post.
With an ambitious effort to bring Nicolas Anelka to the club looking destined to fail, Moyes will have his scouts scouring the four corners of the earth for a proven finisher in the remaining ten days of the transfer window.
Whether he can find one might just be the difference between a comfortable mid-table finish in the league and a fruitful cup run or a drawn out relegation battle and an exit at the hands of Chelsea in the next round.
Toffees assistant boss Alan Irvine said after the game: "I thought we deserved to win it. We deserved to win the first game, but it's the same old story.
"We made a lot of chances and it's good that we are creating them, but we need to be more clinical.
"We have not got a great deal of money so it's difficult to get someone in who is going to get you 30 goals a season. But the whole squad needs to step up and be more clinical.
"Tim Cahill was fantastic.
"His goals were important last year and if he can keep this goalscoring run up, then we could enjoy a better second half to the season."