…With Cherries on Top
Last year for Dad’s birthday I made four layers of a lemon cake with raspberry jam filling and frosted it with buttercream. I tried to decorate with red frosting, but I didn’t have food gel dye, just the little squirt bottles so the frosting became a deep pink. Very pink.
This year I was determined to make his cake red. What better way is there to do that than cherries? And my dad just so happens to love cherry pie filling. I designed the rest of the cake around that idea. I settled on a white chocolate cake with a creamy cheesecake filling and buttercream frosting.
I’ve made this cake several times. I love it because it’s easy and it tastes good. Seriously, you dumb all of the ingredients in the bowl and mix it together.
Line the bottom of two 9in round cake pans with parchment paper. You also want to grease the sides. I used this awesome spray…but if you don’t have baking spray with flour in it, you can grease the sides with butter and then coat them with a dusting of flour. This keeps the cake from burning to the sides of the pans.
White Chocolate Cake
Ingredients:
- 1 box of white cake mix
- 1 package of white chocolate instant pudding
- 4 egg whites
- 1 cup sour cream
- 1 cup vegetable oil
- ½ cup milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¼ teaspoon salt
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 375ºF.
- Combine the ingredients in a medium sized mixing bow. Beat until smooth.
- Pour batter into the two 9in round cake pans.
- Bake for 22 – 25 minutes.
- Test with a toothpick. The cake should spring back after a gentle application of pressure.
- Cool on a cooling rack.
Next you’ll want to make the buttercream frosting. I made 1½ batches. I should have doubled it.
Buttercream Frosting
Ingredients:
- 1 cup unsalted butter
- 3-4 cups powdered sugar
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
- 1-4 Tablespoons milk or heavy cream
Directions:
- Beat butter a few minutes on medium speed.
- Add three cups of powdered sugar and mix on lowest speed (or else you’ll have a mess).
- Turn up the speed and add the vanilla, salt and 2 Tbls of cream for 3 minutes.
- Add more milk or sugar depending on consistency.
Put on cake round down on whatever you’re using as a plate. Then create a dam of frosting around the edge of the cake. This is going to keep the filling from oozing out the sides when you add the second layer.
Cheesecake Filling
Ingredients:
- 1 package of cheesecake flavored instant pudding
- 1 cup of milk
- 1 tub of Cool Whip
Directions:
- Mix the pudding mix and milk together until smooth.
- Fold in the Cool Whip.
This recipe makes way more filling than you need. Which is good, since I rant out of buttercream. But I’ll get back to that in a little bit.
Fill the cavity you made with the buttercream with the filling. Set the second layer of cake on top.
To decorate, I went around the outside of the cake by running the piping bag with a big circle tip up and down the side—like a really narrow series of Ws.
I finished the sides and ran out of frosting. I spread a very thin layer of the buttercream over the top of the cake so the cake wouldn’t dry out.
Instead of making more frosting, I chose to do an experiment. I activated some flavorless gelatin over some heavy cream. My biggest mistake was not fully dissolving the gelatin with hot water. I added the gelatin to the remainder of the filling and thoroughly stirred it in. I let it sit in the fridge overnight to thicken. It worked! Sometime I’ll do a detailed explanation of this process.
I used a closed-star decorating tip (I don’t know exactly what it’s called) to pipe on big flowers of the filling around the outside edge of the cake. I needed to make another dam for the cherries. Remember how I mentioned that the gelatin didn’t dissolve? This kept clogging up the decorating tip.
I suffered through though.
Fill the top of the cake with the cherry pie filling.
Cut and serve!
