Triple Chocolate Cherry Cake — 🍫🍒 This MOIST and TENDER cake is loaded with juicy cherries and topped with an easy homemade chocolate frosting! Boxed chocolate cake mix is doctored up with canned cherry pie filling to make the BEST cake ever! This recipe might use some baking shortcuts, but it tastes homemade!
Table of Contents
Easy Chocolate Cake with Cherries
This chocolate cherry cake is the easiest cake ever. Oh, how I love baking shortcuts and timesavers!
It’s perfect for potlucks, picnics, or parties, because who can say no to chocolate cake, chocolate chips in the cake, and homemade chocolate frosting?
You make the cake by combining a box of devil’s food cake mix with eggs and cherry pie filling. You don’t need to add the water or oil that the mix calls for, just the eggs, pie filling, and almond extract to enhance the flavor.
The result is a supremely moist chocolate cake that’s loaded with cherry chunks. The juicy cherries amidst the rich cake are perfect, and the cake is lightly flavored with almond extract, which perfectly complements the cherries.
Ingredients for Chocolate Cherry Cake
I made this chocolate cake with cherry pie filling to save time, but it tastes completely homemade! If you’ve never used cherry pie filling in a cake before, just trust me when I say the result is phenomenal!
Here’s what you’ll need for the chocolate cherry cake itself:
- Boxed Devil’s Food Cake mix
- Eggs
- Almond extract
- Cherry pie filling
- Semi-sweet chocolate chips
And for the homemade chocolate frosting, you’ll need:
- Chocolate
- Unsalted butter
- Confectioners’ sugar
- Dutch process cocoa powder
- Salt
- Light corn syrup
- Vanilla extract
Note: Scroll down to the recipe card section of the post for the ingredients with amounts included and for more complete directions.
How to Make Chocolate Cherry Cake
Making the chocolate cake with cherry pie filling is so simple! Here are the basic steps:
- Make the frosting: Add the cake mix, eggs, and almond extract to a large mixing bowl and mix.
- Add the cherry pie filling and stir by hand to incorporate, then stir in the chocolate chips.
- Spread the chocolate cake batter in a prepared 9×13-inch pan and bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
- Make the frosting: Melt the chocolate, let cool, then blend in a food processor alongside the butter, sugar, cocoa powder, salt, corn syrup, and vanilla.
- Frost the cake: Spread the frosting over the chocolate cherry cake once the cake has fully cooled.
Recipe FAQs
No, I’ve only made this recipe using cherry pie filling. I know not everyone is a fan of cherry pie filling desserts, but trust me, this one is delicious!
To my knowledge, regular cherries won’t work here.
Of course! I absolutely adored the frosting, but if you’d like to try another one I would recommend this light and fluffy chocolate frosting. Or if you want a boiled frosting like you’d find in a Texas sheet cake, I’d go with this chocolate icing. Or try this chocolate ganache, or just use canned frosting from the baking aisle. No judgment here!
Absolutely! If serving to guests, I recommend making the cake no more than 24 hours in advance. But it’s so moist that you can probably stretch it to 48 hours in advance.
My gut says no since the chocolate cherry cake is so moist. I typically avoid making layer cakes anyways because they require too much effort!
NO! I cannot stress how important it is to add ONLY the ingredients I’ve listed in the recipe card below to the chocolate cake mix, and not the ingredients that are listed on the box. If you add the additional ingredients listed on the boxed cake mix, this cake won’t turn out right!
Storage Instructions
Cake: Will keep airtight at room temp for up to 2 days or in the fridge for 1 week. It can also be frozen for up to 3 months.
Frosting: You may have a small amount of extra frosting, which will keep airtight in the fridge for at least 1 week.
Recipe Video
Pin This Recipe
Enjoy AverieCooks.com Without Ads! 🆕
Go Ad Free
Triple Chocolate Cherry Cake
Ingredients
Cake
- one 15.25-ounce box devil’s food cake mix
- 2 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon almond extract, or to taste
- one 21-ounce can cherry pie filling
- 1 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips
Frosting
- 8 ounces chocolate, melted and cooled*
- 1 ¼ cups unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 1 cup confectioners’ sugar
- ¾ cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder**
- pinch of salt
- ¾ cup light corn syrup
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
Make the Cake
- Preheat oven to 350F and line a 9×13-inch pan aluminum foil for easier cleanup and spray with cooking spray; set aside.
- To a large bowl, add the cake mix, eggs, almond extract and beat with a handheld electric mixer on low speed for about 90 seconds; mixture will be dry with pea-sized lumps and clumps.
- Add the cherry pie filling and stir by hand to incorporate.
- Add the chocolate chips and stir by hand to incorporate; batter will be thick and somewhat lumpy.
- Turn batter out into prepared pan and bake for about 35 to 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean or with a few moist crumbs but no batter. Allow cake to cool in pan on a wire rack for about 1 hour, or until cooled completely before frosting it.
Make the Frosting
- To a large microwave-safe bowl, add the chocolate (break it into pieces or roughly chop) and heat on high power to melt. Stop every 20 seconds to check and stir. Once chocolate can be stirred smooth, set aside to cool.
- To a large canister of a food processor, add the butter, sugar, cocoa powder, salt, and process on high speed until smooth, about 30 to 60 seconds, scraping the sides of the bowl as needed.
- Add the corn syrup, vanilla, and process on high until just combined, about 10 seconds.
- Scrape down the sides of the bowl, add the melted chocolate, and pulse until smooth and creamy, 10 to 15 one-second pulses.
- Evenly frost the cake.
Notes
- *I used a mixture of Trader Joe’s 72% Pound Plus Bar and Dark Chocolate Pound Plus Bar.
- **Original recipe calls for Dutch-processed, but I used regular Hershey’s.
- You may have a small amount of extra frosting which will keep airtight in the fridge for at least 1 week. Cake will keep airtight in the fridge for up to 1 week.
- Cake adapted from Betty Crocker, Frosting from Brown Eyed Baker via Cooks Illustrated
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
©averiecooks.com. Content and photographs are copyright protected. Sharing of this recipe is both encouraged and appreciated. Copying and/or pasting full recipes to any social media is strictly prohibited.
More Easy Chocolate Cake Recipes:
Chocolate Dump Cake with Chocolate Pudding – 🤎🙌🏻🍫The EASIEST cake ever because you literally dump just 5 ingredients into the pan, mix them in the pan, and bake!
Coca-Cola Cake — One cake of Coke in the cake and another can of Coke in the frosting! Easy no-mixer cake that’s supremely moist! Tastes like a Texas sheet cake spiked with Coke!
The Best Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Ganache – The best chocolate cake I’ve ever had and the easiest scratch cake to make! Nothing fussy or complicated and delivers amazing results every time!
Flourless Chocolate Cake — A classy, elegant cake that’s ultra rich, fudgy, and tastes better than what you’d get in a fancy restaurant and it’s so EASY!
Red Wine Chocolate Cake — Rich chocolate cake spiked with Cabernet and topped with a silky ganache that also has Cabernet in it!
The Best Triple Chocolate Layer Cake — Rich, intense, and everything you crave in decadent chocolate cake! Along with tender chocolate cake there’s chocolate cream cheese frosting, chocolate chips, and melted chocolate!
The Best and The Easiest Molten Chocolate Lava Cakes – One bowl, no mixer, so easy! The warm, gooey, fudgy chocolate center is heavenly! Better than any restaurant versions!
Turtle Chocolate Poke Cake – The flavor of the famous candy in a decadent chocolate cake with tons of caramel and pecans! Easy, super soft and moist, and a crowd favorite!
Smores Poke Cake – A supremely moist and decadent chocolate cake topped with graham crackers, marshmallows, and hot fudge! Campfire not required for this fun and easy twist on smores!
The almond extract in your ganache recipe was wonderful on this moist, easy, delicious cake! Thank you for this fantastic recipe! Will be making this many times again! Everyone from the kids to the adults LOVED it!
Thanks for the 5 star review and glad that it got rave reviews and you’ll be making it lots!
I’m going to try this with your choc ganache . Making it today for a birthday cake. Should I use almond extract in the ganache instead of vanilla?
Almond extract would be great! Hope it turned out great for you!
Hi Averie
can I make this cake ahead of time. The Triple Chocolate Cherry Cake. (not the frosting) I want to make 2 days in advance, then frost before I am ready to give it away. For instance I want to make tonight which is a Wednesday night & then Frost tomorrow night so my husband can bring it to work. Would it still be moist?
thank you
It’s an extremely moist cake from the get-go so I think it will still be moist two days later.
Can the triple chocolate cherry cake be made as a layer cake. I have not made it yet but looks yummy
My hunch is no simply because it’s an extremely moist cake and I don’t know how well it would do being layered.
The cake looks so good..who needs icing👍showed husband will definitely make.
I agree! Hope you enjoy it!
I don’t have a food processor, so may I substitute making this icing in my KitchenAid stand mixer?
I would do a blender over a stand mixer. Totally different mechanical actions between a mixer and the other two so I would opt for a blender or food proc. Cheap ones at Target are like 29.99 even.
Thanks so much for inventing this recipe…I always bake from scratch but this cake is so special, moist and rich you can’t tell it uses cake mix! Everyone who’s tried this cake loveslovesloves it! I did decrease the butter in the icing the 2nd time I made it b/c I’d had trouble getting the icing to “set up” but with that small change this is now one of my “go to” cake recipes. Thanks again…I truly love reading your recipes and can’t wait to try more (e.g. “ALL”) of them! (Next Up: Blueberry Pie Bars!!!)
Glad you love the recipe as much as I do and i agree, no one could/would ever tell it starts with a mix
Make the Blueberry Pie Bars! They are one of my personal and family’s favorites! My mom loves them!
I love cherries. I love chocolate, but this is too sweet for me. It baked perfectly. It was moist, not crumbly. It was easy to cut. It looked so beautiful, but it was just too sweet.
This is a sweet cake. You could always use a different frosting that you know isn’t as sweet and that you’re familiar with. The sweet cherries that make it moist and not crumbly also does make it sweet.
I did use a less chocolate icing—I love cherries, I eat a lot of them–fresh cherries, chocolate covered cherry candies, cherry pie, cherry tarts. That’s one reason I used a tamer icing
hey girl- this cake looks so good!
That frosting is calling my name!
Seriously one of the best chocolate frostings I’ve ever had!
Oh my!! That frosting looks INCREDIBLE! I love cherry chocolate combo but I could eat that frosting with a spoon!
It was so good and I may have done just that :)
DANG girl, this looks better than Ryan Gosling and Ryan Reynolds put together.
Lol love that :) Have a great weekend!
My goodness – that icing! I can just imagine sinking my teeth into a big bite of this chocolate deliciousness – beautiful indeed :) Happy weekend!
Happy weekend to you as well!
This cake looks incredible! I need this to be in my life asap.
Paige
https://thehappyflammily.com
Thank you!
I think chocolate and cherry just might be my favorite food combination. I’m salivating right now. There’s a regional ice cream flavor here with chocolate fudge and cherries in vanilla ice cream that’s to die for (lots of cherries grow in northern MI). I will definitely be trying this recipe!
chocolate fudge and cherries in vanilla ice cream = YES that sounds to die for indeed!
Please LMK if you try this!
Love the chocolate-cherry-almond flavors…and that frosting does look divine!! It seems different because of the corn syrup but I am guessing that is what helps with the velvety texture.
Yes I know that’s what gives it the velvety texture and it is DIVINE! Loved it so much :)