This cake baby is all-natural. A rich and delicious three-layered cake brushed with cherry reduction and cherry compote, and a not-too-sweet cherry reduction buttercream frosting tinted with cherry juice.
These cherries were very ripe and fresh. At $3.99 for 2 pounds, I did a double-take and immediately bought them. I almost passed them up and then thought what a fool I would be if I had. Not only do fresh cherries make a delious addition for many meals and desserts, they also hold a lot of nutrional benefits such as anti-oxidants, vitmamins, potassium and copper.
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Ingredients for Cherry Chocolate Cake
Flour: An unbleached all-purpose flour will never let you down.
Sugar: White granulated sugar is perfect for this cake and a simple confectioners’ sugar measured modestly, will make a wonderful mildly sweet buttercream frosting. For this cake, you won’t need to make a huge batch of buttercream. You can make half batch.
Fresh cherries: I found these dark red cherries at the market today, and I couldn’t resist the price! You can use dark cherries or tart cherries.
Chocolate: A Dutch-processed cocoa powder is perfect. It has less bitterness and more chocolatiness. Paired with 9 ounces of semi-sweet baker’s chocolate will make your cake doubly chocolate.
Eggs: Use large brown eggs. They are less processed and produce a richer flavored cake. But besides flavor, eggs are the binding and stability agents. They are like secret agents!
Unsalted butter: Unsalted butter is the way to go for buttercream frosting.
Leaven: A teaspoon of baking soda and the baking powder will activate the rise, like the Wonder Twins when used with either oil, yogurt, or mayonnaise. Yes, you can use mayo in your cake for the moistest chocolate cake ever!
Oil vs. Yogurt: I dropped the oil, and substituted it for plain Greek yogurt. The yogurt provides more moisture and a layer of tartness. Just barely though.
Salt: Go for the fine sea salt. It’s fine and salty!
What is buttercream frosting and how do I make it?
There are several types of buttercream frostings. There is swiss and Italian buttercream and American buttercream. You can use any of them for this cake. The first two require a little more work. I opted for American buttercream because it’s the easiest. Butter, powdered sugar and vanilla. That’s all. You can use a food processor for this one. What you do is add the butter and the powdered sugar to the food processor a little bit at a time until the all the measured butter and sugar are used up, while using the pulse button.
Chocolate Cherry Cake
- Total Time: 45 Minutes
- Yield: 8 Slices 1x
Description
A super moist 3 layer choclate cake with layers of cherry buttercream, cherry reduction and cherry compote.
Ingredients
Chocolate Cake
- 1 1/2 cup unbleaced all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 9 ounces of semi-sweet baker’s chocolate
- 2/3 cup dutch-processed cocoa powder
- 4 eggs
- 1 1/2 cups strong brewed coffee or instant coffee
- 1 teaspoon salt
Buttercream frosting
- 1 cup of unsalted butter (2 sticks), room temperature
- 2 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 tablespoon liquid from the cherry reduction
Instructions
The Cake
- Preheat oven at 350 degrees F. Grease two 9 inch cake pans and line the bottoms with parchment paper. Set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder and salt.
- In a separate bowl, combine the hot coffee, baker’s chocolate and cocoa powder until the chocolate bar is completely melted. The mixture will be soupy. Set in the refrigerator to cool.
- Whisk the eggs and yogurt into the cooled chocolate mixture until combined.
- Whisk the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. Mix well.
- Divide batter between the two pans and bake for 18-20 minutes.
- Remove from oven and cool in the pans for 15 minutes before transfering them to a cooling rack.
- For the easiest way to frost a cake, freeze the cake for a few hours or over night.
- Cut off rough edges of cake. Brush the liquid from the cherry reduction over each cake layer, and let set before adding the buttercream.
Notes
Use blueuberries or strawberries in place of the cherries.
Make sure the chocolate mixture is cooled before adding the eggs. If not, you’ll risk the eggs turning into chocolate scrambled eggs. While in theory that might sound yummy, scrambled eggs in your cake won’t taste yummy.
- Prep Time: 25 Minutes
- Cook Time: 20 Minutes
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Bake
- Cuisine: American
Keywords: chocolate cake, cherries, american buttercream frosting
