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Chocolate Cherry Cake

Chocolate Cherry Cake

Beautiful dark chocolate cherry cake covered in a silky chocolate buttercream frosting. The subtle flavor of cherry and almond cuts through the richness of the dark chocolate and leaves your taste buds asking for more.
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Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 40 minutes
Resting & Assembly Time 1 hour
Total Time 2 hours
Course Dessert
Servings 2 8 inch layers

Ingredients
  

For The Cake:

  • 250 g all purpose flour
  • 75 g cocoa powder
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 2 tsp baking soda
  • ½ tsp salt
  • 300 g light brown sugar
  • 2 large eggs
  • 100 ml vegetable oil
  • 50 ml brewed coffee
  • 1 tsp almond extract
  • 1 (21 oz) can Duncan Hines Comstock original cherry pie filling

For The Chocolate Buttercream Frosting:

  • 1½ cup unsalted butter softened
  • 5½ cups powdered sugar
  • ¾ cup cocoa powder
  • 1½ tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 tsp almond extract
  • ½ cup heavy whipping cream

For Decoration:

  • 6 maraschino cherries, with stems rinsed and dried

Instructions
 

To Make the Cake:

  • Preheat oven to 350°. Prepare 2, 8-inch round cake pans by lining the bottoms with parchment paper and greasing the sides. Set aside.
  • In a large bowl, sieve the flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, salt and brown sugar. Use a whisk to combine everything evenly. Add remaining ingredients and whisk together until batter is smooth. Pour into prepared pans and smooth using a spatula.
  • Bake 35-40 minutes or until toothpick comes out mostly clean and it is slightly pulling away from the sides of the pans. Place on a wire rack and allow to cool in the pans for 10 minutes. Remove from pans and discard parchment paper from bottoms of cakes. Allow to cool completely before frosting.

To Make The Frosting:

  • To make the chocolate buttercream frosting, in a medium bowl, using a hand mixer or stand mixer, cream butter for 1-2 minutes. Add powdered sugar, cocoa, extracts and heavy cream. Mix for several minutes until mixture becomes light and fluffy.

Assembly:

  • Place one layer of cake on a cake stand or serving dish. Top with about 2/3 cup chocolate buttercream frosting and smooth. Top with remaining cake layer. Cover the outside and top of cake with a very thin layer of frosting to create a crumb coat. Chill for 20 minutes in the refrigerator.
  • Fit a piping bag with an open star pastry tip (I use Ateco #828), and fill with about 2/3 cup of frosting. Set aside.
  • Frost and smooth the outside of the cake using a metal bench scraper or offset spatula with the remaining chocolate buttercream frosting. Using the prepared piping bag, pipe 6 rosette dollops on the top of the cake. Place a maraschino cherry in the center of each dollop if desired. Chill for 30 minutes until firm.

Notes

In these photos, I made a 3 layer 6-inch cake. Baking time was extended to about 40-45 minutes.