Chocolate Cherry Filled Cake with Chocolate Covered Cherries

In my family we love chocolate cake with lots of creamy chocolate frosting. Once in a blue moon we with get crazy and use white buttercream and sometimes we even add a little raspberry filling. This year since I have a plethora of cherries I decided to make my version of black forest cake. Don't worry it is not complicated at all, the hardest part is making the cherry filling.

Depending upon the tartness of your cherries I would adjust the amount of sugar added. I really did not need much sugar as my cherries were sweet. I like to use either chocolate buttercream frosting or my favorite Hershey's Perfectly Chocolate Frosting when I make this cake but you can use whatever kind of frosting that you like. 

Cake
Recipe from Rumbly in my Tumble

1 3/4 cups all purpose flour

2 cups granulated sugar

3/4 cups  Unsweetened Cocoa

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

3/4 teaspoon salt

2 eggs

1 cup buttermilk 

1/2 cup melted butter,

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 cup of hot coffee

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350°. Grease and flour 2  9" cake pans, or grease and line with parchment paper circles. 

In the bowl of your stand mixer, add the flour, sugar,  cocoa baking soda, and salt and mix until combined.  Add the eggs, melted butter, vanilla, and buttermilk, and mix until just combined. Remove the bowl from the mixer and and then stir the hot coffee into the batter by hand.  The batter will be runny.  It’s supposed to be.

Pour into your cake pans and bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean with just a few bits of cake stuck to it. For 9 inch pans, that should be anywhere from 20-30 minutes.  Start checking around 15 minutes. If you make in a different size than you will have a different baking time. 

When you remove each cake from the oven, let it cool for 5 minutes, then run a knife around the edges of the pan, and carefully tip the pan over on a cooling rack. If you used parchment paper on the bottom remove it. Let cakes cool completely before frosting. 

 Cherry Filling

1/8 cup granulated sugar

2/12 tablespoons of cornstarch

3 cups of cherries, frozen (pitted)

1 tablespoon butter

1 teaspoon almond extract

In a small saucepan stir the sugar and the cornstarch together, then add the cherries and mix. Place over low-medium heat to melt the cherries. If using fresh cherries I add a couple tablespoons of water to make a little syrup. Continue to cook for about 4 minutes until there is a thick syrup and the mixture comes to a boil. Do not leave unattended or the mixture will burn. Remove from heat and add the butter and the almond extract and mix well. Set aside to cool.



HERSHEY'S Perfectly Chocolate Frosting

Ingredients:

1 stick butter, melted
2/3 cup of Hershey's cocoa powder
1/3 cup of milk
2 1/2  cups of powdered sugar
1 tsp of vanilla

Melt butter in large bowl, whisk or use electric hand held mixer to blend in 
cocoa Add one cup of powdered sugar, and a little milk, alternating between the two until both are used up and the frosting is creamy. Add vanilla and blend. Then use to frost the top and sides of the cake.

To assemble cake, cut one layer in half horizontally then place one layer on a plate and add 1/3 of the cherry filling to the center.  spread around. Then top with the next layer of cake add 1/3 filling to the top, add the next layer, top with filling and then add the final layer. 
Do not top with the filling( you should not have any left). Frost the entire cake with the Hershey's chocolate frosting. 

Note: You can add frosting to the layers and then add the cherry filling if you would like.  You may have some frosting left depending upon how much frosting you like on your cake. I personally like it thick. 

For Garnish:

Fresh Cherries
Ghirardelli Chocolate Melting Wafers 

Follow the directions on the melting wafers and dip in the cherries. Let cool/set and then garnish cake.

Enjoy!


Notes:

1. For this post I made two cakes, unfortunately we ate the 3 layer cake before I could take photos. So this photo is of a two layer cake.

2. This post contains affiliate links.



Linking to:
Savvy Southern Style