Cherry Chocolate Clutter Cake

It’s cherry season here on our farm. Wait! I don’t live on a farm (It just sometimes feels like I do). Well, this fruit is getting ripe (it’s so IN right now) and that means it’s time to dust off the cherry recipes. The recipe I’m using today was originally referred to as Cherry Chocolate Dump Cake. There’s no better tasting cake with a worse name if you ask me. I had to change it. (Changing names is my specialty!) The thing is, I cannot think of one good connotation for the word dump. For some reason someone decided to name this scrumptious cake with that word and the poor thing has been stuck with it ever since.

I assume they were looking for a word that describes how you dump all the ingredients into the pan and voila! So I set my sites on an alternative and this is what I settled on: Cherry Chocolate Clutter Cake. (Can you tell I’m a fan of alliteration?) But seriously, don’t you think a Clutter Cake sounds so much more appetizing than a Dump Cake? Great! I’m glad you agree. With that behind us, we can move on to the recipe. But first I have to tell you about my cherry trees.

With all my lamenting about squirrels and my backyard fruit trees (peach, pear, and plumb…more alliteration!!), I think I might have neglected to inform you about my two little cherry trees in the front yard. They’re sour cherry trees which makes them perfect for baking! (Hmm, maybe I do live on a farm!)

Would you like to take a peek?

I took this picture a couple of weeks ago when the cherries were just starting to turn color. Aren’t they just delicious looking?

This tree produces so many cherries.

Hey there little Cherry! I think there might be a pie in your future. Or maybe muffins. How about cupcakes? I think Monet at Anecdotes and Apples would like that! She just returned from NY with a piqued interest in cupcakes.

We started harvesting the cherries just this week so I’ll have more pictures…and recipes soon.

To get your taste buds tuned to the right channel, here’s our favorite (and easy) recipe for Cherry Chocolate Clutter Cake!

Cherry Chocolate Clutter Cake

2 cans cherry pie filling
1 box chocolate cake mix, We use a vegan cake mix
1.5 sticks vegan margarine, 3/4 Cup
2 cups chocolate chips
1 cup pecans, chopped
Heat your oven to 350.

Open the 2 cans of cherry pie filling and spread into the bottom of an ungreased 9X13 cake pan.

Spread the dry cake mix over the cherry pie filling.

Next, melt the margarine (I used the microwave because, well, I’m lazy that way) and drizzle the melted margarine over the cake mix. Be sure to spread the love a little and get an even amount across the cake mix.

Evenly spread the chocolate chips over the top of the melted margarine and then follow with the pecans.

Bake in the oven for 50 minutes. Yes, that is a long time to wait, but I know you can do it!

Remove the Clutter Cake from the oven and let cool. OK. You don’t have to let it cool entirely because this is really good when it’s warm. The dangerous part about this cake is that you just scoop it out with a spoon which makes it too easy to serve yourself way too much. But don’t worry, this cake has it’s own self preservation plan. It’s really rich so you can’t eat too much. We like to serve this with a little dollop of soy vanilla ice cream, but it’s good all on it’s own as well. Enjoy!