Shift Series Recipes: Black Forest Cake

STAND, the final book in the Shift Series, turned two years old yesterday! Let’s celebrate with cake! A recipe for cake, that is.

Black Forest is Leah’s birthday cake flavor of choice in the opening of SHIFT. It’s hardly a secret that it’s my favorite too.  My own mom makes it for me every year for my birthday. And, it just so happens that my birthday was last week–so I took a picture of my cake to share with you all!

I didn’t manage to get a picture before we started cutting it (it was just so delicious, I couldn’t wait!) but that’s how you know it’s a real picture, right?  Right.

So here’s the recipe for Black Forest Cake. It’s seriously delicious–and seriously easy.

1 box chocolate cake mix, prepared according to directions*

1 can cherry pie filling

1 jar cream cheese frosting

Directions: Prepare the cake mix using whatever shape cake pan you prefer (mine was a bundt this year, but the shape doesn’t really matter,) and allow to cool fully.  For bundt: cut cake to make two layers; remove cake to form a very shallow trough in the bottom layer; add half of the cherries and frosting to bottom layer; sit top layer onto bottom; add the remaining frosting and cherries. For double-layer round: level bottom cake to allow for easy, even stacking, and top cake to reduce domed top (too steep a dome will make the cherries slide off the top of the cake); apply half of the frosting and cherries to bottom layer; add top layer; top with remaining icing and cherries.

If you want to get fancy, you can make any or all of the parts from scratch.

*I suggest adding 1/2 cup sour cream to your cake mix as you prepare it. It takes boxed chocolate cake mix to another level, I swear.

That’s it! Super easy, right?

If you give it a try, let me know how you like it!