Almost every time I went to one of my best friend’s houses throughout my childhood, there was a cherry chip cake on the counter. I don’t even know the last time I had cherry chip cake, but it was definitely at that house. So when the blog Olive and Artisan posted a recipe for a homemade version, Cherry Chip Cake with American Buttercream, I knew I had to try it out. This recipe did NOT disappoint (except it disappointed the dogs because they didn’t get to try any).
First off, it was the photo I saw on Instagram that caught my eye. Such a beautiful cake! And as I took a closer look, it was cherry chip! From scratch! Honestly though, even if you don’t make this cake, be sure to click on that link up there so you can at least check out some of the beautiful creations on this blog.
The recipe and directions are super easy to follow and I had no trouble with finding ingredients since they are all your basic cake ingredients. I even had a jar of maraschino cherries in the fridge with just the right amount of juice and cherries (thankfully). I felt like I was committing some sort of a crime because this recipe uses oil instead of butter but needless to say, I used the butterless batter to bake cupcakes and they turned out really well.
The buttercream was SO good. I’ve never used so much butter in a buttercream before but it was so much easier to pipe and in general, just creamier and butterier. I think I am going to use this recipe from now on. The only thing was that I couldn’t find any sweet cream butter at my (useless) grocery store, so I used regular butter instead. I did add more icing sugar to it because it really just tasted and had the consistency of pure butter for a bit. While I would be okay with that, I feel like generally, people frown upon eating straight up butter. Anyway, I am definitely going to start baking more cakes because I want to work on my piping skills!
Like I said, I used this batter to bake cupcakes because they are a little quicker than baking and decorating a full on cake. Plus, they are ready to eat when they are cupcakes! No cutting involved! I baked them for about 20 minutes, just until a toothpick came out clean.
Anyway, I highly recommend this recipe if you are going to be baking a cake. Super moist, super tasty (but not too much cherry flavour, if you’re not a cherry person) and the icing .. mmmm the icing. Now get out there and bake this cake!
