Layers of chocolate and cherries with subtle almond flavors make up this luscious Chocolate Cherry Amaretto Cake, your her face chocolate cake recipe.
So, today I turn 30. That means my 20’s are officially over. I’m not exactly sure how I feel about this. I’m sad that it’s an end of an era, but excited for a new chapter to start. Even know it’s just another year but I feel like I missed a lot.
So I had planned on doing this whole 30 before 30 list and guess what, I never did get the chance to even start that darn list. So I suppose I’m gonna have to do a 40 before 40 list instead, at least that gives me a whole 10 years to work with now!
So despite my hard feelings about what is supposed to be a joyous day at least I have this dreamy Chocolate Cherry Amaretto Cake to enjoy and swoon after. This had got to be my new favorite cake. Chocolate, cherries, amaretto….yassss.
But if you know me and have read any of my cake posts before then you know that pretty much any new cake I post is my new fave cake. But isn’t that the way it goes?? Cake is essentially life to me, always has been, always will be. Cake is cake, and it’s glorious.
So this Chocolate Cherry Amaretto Cake is 3 layers of chocolate cake, chocolate amaretto frosting and cherries. That combination is absolutely amazing. I mean if you’ve never had the taste of cherries and amaretto together before then you need to try.
So when we were in Colorado I stopped at this small roadside stand and they had some cherry amaretto jam and it was heaven in my mouth. And you know what happens when I find heaven right? I must recreate It!
Now this isn’t a jam, but it has the flavors of the jam. Which I may still have to recreate at some point here after some fun recipe testing. Brcause I did buy it and I’m gonna devour it soon. I’m scared to eat it because I don’t want it to be gone!! Ever felt that way?
So in the mean time I’m gonna sit here swoon over this Chocolate Cherry Amaretto Cake and fall in LOVE day after day just looking at this thing. That cake is so moist and flavorful and the frosting is light fluffy heaven.
Everything about this cake has me elated. It’s fun, tasty and actually super simple and you’re gonna wanna give this bad boy a try!!
Chocolate Cherry Amaretto Cake
Ingredients
Cake:
- 2 cups flour
- 2 cups sugar
- 1 cup Dutch process cocoa powder
- 2 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 1 cup vegetable or canola oil
- 1 1/2 tsp vanilla
- 1 cup boiling water
Cherries:
- 1 cup sliced and pitted fresh cherries
- 1 cup water
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 3 Tbs amaretto syrup
Frosting:
- 2 cups butter
- 1 Tbs almond extract
- 10 Tbs cocoa
- 8-10 cups powdered sugar
- 5-6 Tbs amaretto syrup
- 3-4 Tbs milk
- Shaved unsweetened chocolate optional
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 300.
- In large bowl whisk together your dry ingredients until combined.
- Add in your eggs, buttermilk, oil, vanilla and eater and stir until combined well.
- Prepare 3 8" pans and pour cake batter evenly among the 3.
- Bake for about 30 minutes or until center us set and toothpick comes out clean.
- Remove from oven and let cool in pans for about 5 minutes before turning out onto cooking racks to cool completely.
- To a sauce pan add your cherries water, sugar and syrup and bring to a boil and boil for about 5 minutes to soften up the cherries, drain and pat dry and cool.
- To make frosting in large bowl beat together your butter until smooth. Add in your almond extract and amaretto syrup until blended.
- Mix in your cocoa powder then add in your powdered sugar 1 cup at a time until you reach your desired consistency.
- Add in milk as needed.
- To assemble cake, layer 1 cake layer on a turntable then spread about 1 cup of tour frosting over the top, next layer in half of your sliced cherries over the top.
- Layer with next cake layer and repeat.
- Frost the outside of cake and decorated as desired.
Nutrition
Tornadough Alli is not a nutritionist or dietitian, and any nutritional information shared is an estimate. If calorie count and nutritional value is important to you, we recommend running the ingredients through whichever online nutritional calculator you prefer. Calories and values can vary depending on which brands were used.
Cake adapted fro Live, Love and Sugar
Steph
Definitely use all-purpose flour and not cake flour (lesson learned here!). I ended up using Amaretto liqueur as did some other reviewers – great flavor! And I didn’t have fresh cherries so cooked frozen cherries with sugar and about 1/2 c water – then drained (reserving what ended being a delicious thin cherry syrup, which I added to frosting for 1/2 amount of milk… adds a brilliant cherry taste to the frosting! Cherries are not as pretty as fresh would have been but once I remade my cake layers, it turned out AMAZING! Made for our 20th wedding anniversary (similar to our top cake layer from 20 years ago!) thank you for sharing the recipe!
Emily
Made this for my birthday for a few friends/family and my fiancée… and it was a massive hit! I used two 9 inch pie tins instead but it turned out great! Deliciously moist cake with the best flavor combos! Will definitely be making this again!
Kirstie
Delicious! I used amaretto instead of amaretto syrup, and made two 8×4 three layer cakes because I didn’t have 8 inch cake pans. Otherwise followed the recipe exactly. The cake was moist and yummy even without the frosting, but everything together was perfection.
Karen Levy
Can you please tell me what Amaretto syrup is?
Tornadough Alli
You can get it as a coffee syrup flavor.
Pat
Going to try this this week….is the cocoa unsweetened?
Tornadough Alli
Yes, it is unsweetened.
Eloise
Hi what sort of flour do you use please? This looks delicious!
Tornadough Alli
Regular all-purpose flour for this recipe 🙂
Carlee
Not surprisingly, this looks amazing! I hope you had a great birthday and I’m sure the next decade will be the best one yet!
Sheri Tomaszewski-Nesler
what and where can you get amaretto syrup?
Tornadough Alli
I’m sorry I’m just seeing this now Sheri! Amaretto syrup is a coffee syrup and you can get it at your local grocer or I ordered mine off of amazon. You can also use amaretto liquor like disarono!
Karen L.
YUM,YUM!! Need anyone to sample?? 😉 Geez, Happy Birthday…….good by 20’s!! Hello 30!! I am sorry I forgot it was the BIG day till I read your blog. Hope you have a good day & enjoy whatever you do to celebrate. The cake looks fabulous! Aunt Karen
Lenka Sucha
I have made this cake or versions of it a few times already and it’s always a stellar success. I substituted the syrup for amaretto liquor, and have also made it slightly adapted as giant muffins (drained cherries go in the middle, frosting on top). Moist, chocolatey and delicious!