For years, Chocolate Cherry Cake was my mother’s favorite dessert, the one she brought to every dinner party and church supper, and everyone loved it. Recently I got nostalgic for it, and when I dusted off her recipe, I realized it was this one. I’m not sure what its origin is – it’s posted on many blogs and food sites and no one seems to credit the source. But it’s no wonder so many foodies have shared the recipe over the years: it’s easy, very fudgy, and super moist, packed with all those juicy cherries.
If you Google Chocolate Cherry Cake and read some of the posts, you’ll see some bakers confessing to skepticism about using boxed cake mix. I felt the same. I’m also squeamish about canned pie filling with its high fructose corn syrup. So, while I loved my mother’s version, I decided to strike out on my own and figure out how to recreate this cake from scratch.
The hardest part of this re-do was the cherries. First I tried using plain canned cherries instead of the cherry pie filling, but they were too watery, not sweet enough, and their flavor got completely lost in the chocolate – you couldn’t even tell they were there.
Then I got the idea to make my own cherry pie filling. I used the same canned cherries, but this time I added sugar and thickened their juices with cornstarch before adding them to the cake batter. The process only took a few minutes, and resulted in a cherry pie filling that was glossy and thick, with the tartness of the cherries shining through and none of the fake, slightly metallic flavor of the canned version. This filling would be great in a cherry pie or any other recipe calling for pie filling.
The cake itself is a pretty standard chocolate cake recipe, with cocoa powder for fudginess and buttermilk for tenderness – and lacking in xanthan gum and emulsified palm shortening and all the other scary sounding ingredients found in cake mix.
I replaced the frosting from the original with a slinky dark chocolate glaze that’s rich and shiny and just thick enough to drape over the top edge of the cake, forming irresistible drips down the sides. I’ve made this glaze with both high-end chocolate and regular old semisweet chocolate chips, and it was great either way.
Making Chocolate Cherry Cake ahead and what to do with leftovers:
- Chocolate Cherry Cake is delicious the day it’s baked and even better the next day. It will stay fresh and moist for up to a week (if you can resist it that long), and can be stored at room temperature or chilled.
- The glaze will be silky and shiny at room temperature on day one. Chilling the cake (or even storing it at cool room temperature) will cause the glaze to firm up and lose some of its sheen, but does not diminish its deliciousness in the least.
- You can make the homemade cherry pie filling the day before baking the cake and keep it chilled up to overnight. Don’t make it any further ahead than that.
- The unfrosted cake can be tightly wrapped and frozen for a couple of months. If you’d like to freeze leftovers of this cake after it’s already frosted, freeze it unwrapped until it’s frozen solid so as not to smear the glaze. Then wrap in plastic wrap before packing into a gallon-sized zip-lock freezer bag.
To see this recipe combined with others in a special dinner menu, read the post for Saturday February 15, 2020.
Chocolate Cherry Cake
Make the cherry pie filling ahead so it has time to chill before being added to the cake batter. For the cake you’ll need ¾ cup of the cherry filling. Reserve the remainder for another use.
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter at soft room temperature, plus additional for the pan
- 7/8 cup flour (3 5/8 ounces or 105 grams)
- 3/8 cup Dutch process cocoa powder (1 ounce or 30 grams), plus additional for the pan
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ cup neutral oil, such as expeller-pressed canola oil
- 7/8 cup granulated sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
- ½ cup buttermilk
- ¾ cup cherry pie filling (recipe follows)
- 4 ounces semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, chopped, or ¾ cup semisweet chocolate chips
- 1 tablespoon whole milk
- 2 teaspoons Lyle's Golden Syrup (or light corn syrup)
Directions
- Step 1 Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Generously butter an 8-inch round cake pan. Line the bottom of the pan with a circle of parchment. Butter the parchment, then sprinkle in some cocoa powder. Swivel and turn the pan to coat the entire inner surface with a thin dusting of cocoa powder. Turn the pan over and tap out the excess. Set the pan aside.
- Step 2 Sift the flour, the remaining 3/8 cup of cocoa powder, and the baking soda and baking powder together into a small bowl.
- Step 3 In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine the oil, sugar, egg, vanilla and salt, and beat until the mixture is smooth and slightly thickened, about 1 minute.
- Step 4 Add half the flour mixture and mix on low speed just to combine. Add the buttermilk and mix on low speed until combined. Add the remaining flour mixture and mix until just combined. Remove the bowl from the mixer and use a rubber spatula to stir in the last bits of the flour mixture, just until the batter is smooth. Gently fold in the cherry pie filling.
- Step 5 Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 40 to 45 minutes or until a tester comes out clean. Cool the cake in the pan on a rack for 10 minutes, then turn it out onto the palm of one hand, remove the parchment from the bottom, and place the cake back on the cooling rack, right side up. Let it cool completely before frosting.
- Step 6 Make the glaze: Combine the chopped chocolate or chocolate chips in a medium bowl with the remaining 3 tablespoons of butter, and heat in the microwave on 50% power for 1-minute increments, stirring in between, until the chocolate is almost all melted and only a few small lumps remain. Remove the bowl from the microwave and keep stirring until the chocolate is completely melted and the mixture is smooth. Stir in the milk and Lyle’s syrup. Let the glaze cool for about 10 minutes, or until it’s just thick enough to be pourable but not runny.
- Step 7 Pour the glaze onto the center of the top of the cake and use a knife or an offset spatula to gently nudge the glaze out to the edges and just over the sides of the cake, making thick drips down the sides. Let the cake sit for about 30 minutes to give the glaze time to set before slicing and serving.
Homemade Cherry Pie Filling
Ingredients
- One 14½-ounce can pitted tart cherries packed in water
- ¼ cup granulated sugar
- 1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons cornstarch
Directions
- Step 1 Place a sieve over a small saucepan and dump the cherries in, letting the juice drain into the saucepan. Very gently press on the cherries to extract as much juice as possible without smashing them. Set the cherries aside. Transfer 2 tablespoons of the juice to a small bowl.
- Step 2 Add the sugar to the juice in the saucepan and bring it to a simmer over medium-high heat.
- Step 3 Add the cornstarch to the juice in the bowl, and whisk to make a slurry. Once the juice in the saucepan has come to a simmer and the sugar is dissolved, add the cornstarch slurry and whisk the mixture constantly it returns to a simmer, about 1 minute. Cook, whisking constantly, until the mixture thickens and turns clear and glossy, about 1 minute more. Remove the saucepan from the heat and stir in the cherries.
- Step 4 Transfer the mixture to a small bowl and bring it to room temperature (or chill for up to one day) before using it in the recipe.
