This weekend we celebrated several birthdays. My youngest son turned 3, my oldest turned 14 a few months ago, but do to a broken oven and work travel, I hadn’t made his special cake yet, and my dad turned…..another year older. My 3 year old wanted all the cupcakes he could eat. That was easy because the ones that he wanted were from the grocery store. My 14 year old, however, requested something with cherries and chocolate. I knew the perfect cake to make…..because it also combined two of my dad’s favorite desserts; Cherry Pie Stuffed Chocolate Cake.
To make the cake, you can use either a frozen pie that has to bake and cool, or if you are lucky, your bakery might have a few looking for a home. Just make sure it’s made in a foil pan because it will help when you need to loosen the edges of pie crust from the pan to put it into the cake.
This dessert can get quite large, so you will need a larger than normal cake pan. I used a 10×3 inch deep pan that can be found a most stores that carry cake supplies. If you have one a little larger, that’s ok. It will still work, just use the full 2 boxes of cake mix.
Cherry Pie Stuffed Chocolate Cake
9-inch prebaked cherry pie
1.5 boxes dark chocolate cake mix, batter prepared according to instructions
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
1 cup dark chocolate or semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare your baking pan by lightly greasing and dusting with cocoa powder. Line the bottom of the pan with a ring of parchment paper. Pour in half of the chocolate cake batter. Invert or cherry pie onto the chocolate cake batter and apply light pressure to work the edges into the batter. Pour the remaining batter over the top, making sure that batter is spread over the pie. The pie will still look like a bump in the pan, which is fine because the batter will rise as it bakes, but make sure not to have any exposed pie crust. Bake for 50-60 minutes or until cake tester comes out free of chocolate. Remove the cake from the oven and let cool for 2 hours. Run a knife around the pan to make sure the edges didn’t stick and invert onto a cake plate.
For the glaze, melt the butter in a small sauce pan over medium heat. Remove from the heat and whisk in the chocolate chips, corn syrup, and vanilla. Pour oven the top of the cake. Let set for at least 20 minutes before serving.
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