Chocolate Cake With Cherry Filling and Buttercream Frosting

Chocolate...........cherries.............cake...............YUMMY!  Today, I decided that I needed to make chocolate cake, and then I remembered that I had some cherry preserves that I had canned:

Cherry Preserves on Rediscovering Lost Arts From Our Mothers

I used 2 half pints of cherry preserves.  If you do not want to make your own cherry preserves, you can buy 2 jars at the store.  Use one jar for each of the two bottom layers.  I also added a little of the preserves on the top of the cake.

To make the chocolate cake, assemble the ingredients:


2 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda and baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup water, boiling
1/4 cup chocolate chips
3/4 cup cocoa
2 tablespoons butter
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups sour cream
3/4 cups vegetable oil
3 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla

Assemble the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a bowl.  Set aside.

In a small sauce pan, boil the water.  When the water is boiling, turn off the heat and add the butter, cocoa, and chocolate chips.  Stir to make a chocolate sauce. 

In your mixer, add sugar, oil, sour cream, eggs and vanilla.  Mix completely.  Add 1/2 of the flour mixture, then 1/2 of the chocolate sauce.  Mix thoroughly.  Add the remaining flour and chocolate.  Mix again.

Put into 3 cake pans and bake for 20 minutes at 350 degrees. When the three cakes are finished cooking, remove from the oven and let cool.  When cool, turn the cake pans upside down to remove the cake from the pan.  Allow the cake to sit on a wire rack, cooling completely.

For the bottom layers of the cake, poke holes using a toothpick.  Take the cherry preserves and spread on the cake.

At this point it is time to make the butter cream frosting.  Here are the ingredients:

1 cup softened butter
3-3 1/2 cups powdered sugar
2 tablespoons vanilla
3-4 tablespoons milk or cream

Put the butter in the mixer and cream.  Add 3 cups of the powdered sugar - don't forget the shield on your mixer or the powdered sugar will go all over the place!  Cream the butter and sugar together.  Add the vanilla and milk.  If the frosting isn't the consistency you like, add more powdered sugar.

Add the top layer of the cake.  Start frosting!

This recipe is listed on Foodie Friends Friday and Totally Tasty Tuesdays