CHOCOLATE CHERRY FUDGE CAKE

My husband and I belong to a Dinner Club that meets once a month at one of the member's house. The host furnishes the main course and each couple brings a dish to complement it. It is a fun group and allows the husbands to be involved in a function of the Northland New Neighbors' League which is only women.

We are meeting tonight and I signed up for dessert.  Surprised????? Well I waited to see if any other member wanted to bring dessert before I said I would. Everyone was saying an appetizer, a salad, or vegetable, so I said to myself, "Self, looks like you will be bringing a dessert." I did spend quite a bit of time trying to find a recipe that I hadn't made before. Since strawberries are so good right now, I really wanted to make something with strawberries. But I made my FRESH STRAWBERRY CAKE when we met in June. Everyone loved it, btw.

I finally decided to go with chocolate. You can never go wrong with chocolate with our group(especially the women). I remembered making a chocolate cake that had cherry pie filling in it many years ago. (and my husband did too) I was pretty sure it came from Taste of Home but I couldn't find it in any of my Taste of Home Cookbooks. I honestly spent all evening going through and going through again my MANY cookbooks, but couldn't find it.  

My husband said, "Just google Chocolate Cherry Cake." (I think he was getting tired of my complaining about my lack of success). That was too simple. And besides, I knew I had the recipe. Anyway, not to be outdone, he went to his pc and soon said, "Oh, here are a bunch of recipes." (But not mine.  I mistakenly believed it also had coke in it, but that turned out to be a salad I had made with cherry pie filling and coke--plus some other stuff...but that's another story)

Finally giving up (totally frustrated), I copied one of the recipes he had found and that is what I made last night with personal notes in parenthesis .    

CHOCOLATE CHERRY FUDGE BUNDT

1   box (18 - oz) devil's food cake mix (I used Pillsbury's Sugar-Free Devil's Food Cake)

1/4   cup canola oil

3   large eggs

1/2   cup water

1  1/4  cups cherry pie filling (I used Comstock No Sugar Added Cherry Pie Filling)

1   cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (I used Ghirardelli 60% cacao bittersweet chocolate chips)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Prepare a 12-cup Bundt pan using butter and flour. (I used shortening to grease the pan) Set aside.

Pour the cake mix into your mixing bowl and whisk to break up any clumps. Add the oil, eggs, & water. Beat at medium speed until well mixed (about a minute)

Fold in the cherry pie filling and chocolate chips. (This isn't the full can of cherry pie filling so measure out 1  1/4 cups)

 Pour into prepared pan. (I have a tube pan I like to use.)

 

Bake for 45 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.   

Allow the cake to cool in the pan for 10 minutes on wire rack. 

 Then invert onto your serving platter. Remove pan and allow to completely cool.

After the cake had cooled, I covered it with my glass cake cover and went to bed. Since the recipe had said to drizzle the chocolate glaze over it after it had completely cooled, I felt it was ok to wait to make the glaze this morning. A farm girl's dabbles said "When eaten right away, the cake is very tender.  We prefer to wait a few hours, or even until the following day when the cake is more dense and fudgy."

So this morning I decided to make the glaze. The only problem with her recipe for the glaze is that it calls for 1/2  cup heavy cream. Sandy's husband, Ed, is lactose intolerant so I didn't want to use that recipe. When I went to my recipe box to find a recipe for a chocolate icing, the fourth card behind the "cakes" was....you guessed it. CHOCOLATE CHERRY CAKE from Taste of Home. I couldn't believe it. I guess I had copied it from the magazine and didn't buy the cookbook for that year. Of course the recipe is different from the one I made. I will know next time. "Sometimes I am too organized for my own good." That what I say when I can't find something and then I do....right where it should have been.

I didn't have one that didn't have you icing the cake as soon as it came out of the oven though....so to save some time.....I went to Hershey's.com and got a recipe for a chocolate glaze.  It looked just right in the picture.....but it didn't look that way with me when I made it. Has that ever happened to you? The glaze was too thin and too much ran off the cake.  That's what you see if you look closely at the picture....a darker icing underneath. 

I ended up making another batch and added more powdered sugar and I got just what I had wanted the first time. Here is my version of a thicker chocolate glaze.

Chocolate Glaze

2   tablespoons water

1   tablespoon light margarine

1   tablespoon corn syrup

2   tablespoons Hershey's cocoa

1  cup +  2  tablespoons powdered sugar

1/2   teaspoon vanilla

Heat water, butter, and corn syrup in a small microwaveable bowl to boiling  (On high about 1  1/2  minutes) 

Immediately stir in cocoa with whisk. Whisk til completely dissolved.

Gradually whisk in powdered sugar and vanilla until smooth. 

Cool slightly and then pour over cake. 

My cake may not look as great as I wanted it to look tonight, but I am hoping it taste great. Will wait to publish this until tonight after we get back home. Will let you know what the group thought.

Now I need to go put all those cookbooks back in the cabinet. 

UPDATE!!!! We are home and everyone really enjoyed the cake.  Ed especially thought it was delicious. I had cut small pieces since there were 18 of us eating and also another member, Linda, had brought two frozen ice cream pies (Will be featuring it as soon as Linda sends me the recipe), I asked Ed if he would like to take a piece home. I cut him a big piece to take home and told him he could give Sandy part of it. Carey, Sandi's husband, told me I should have put some whole cherries on the top for decoration. You know, he was right. I will have to remember that the next time I make it.  

Besides the fellowship with some good friends, another great thing about being in the Dinner Club is all the good dishes we get to share. I will be featuring several of the recipes from tonight as soon as I get the recipes.