You can have your cake and eat it too!

At least a few times a year someone in my family makes this cake. We first had it when I was little (probably 3-4 years old) and our neighbor made it. (Shout out to Patti Sehloff - thanks for such a great recipe!) Now, at least 2-3 times a year our family celebrates birthdays with this delicious cake! Most recently I made it for Tim's birthday and took it to our Bible study. Everyone loved it! (At least that's what they told me - hopefully they weren't lying!) I decided it was time pass on this amazing cake and let you enjoy it too!

Chocolate Cherry Cake

Ingredients:

-3 eggs
-1 package of chocolate cake mix (Devil's Food, with pudding)
-1 can (21 oz) cherry pie filling
-1/3 c. vegetable oil

*(Icing ingredients and directions below)*

1. Preheat oven to 350. Grease and flour 13x9'' rectangular pan. (Tip - when I do this step I sprinkle some of the dry cake mix into the pan instead of flour. It keeps the cake from having a flour coating at the end.)

2. Beat eggs. Stir eggs, oil, cake mix, and pie filling together. *(see below for variation)* Pour into prepared pan.
3. Bake 35-40 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Cool completely before icing.

Icing:
1 cup sugar
5 TBSP butter
1/3 cup milk
6-7 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips

1. Combine first 3 ingredients in a small saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly. Boil for one minute then remove from heat.
2. Add chocolate chips and stir until melted. (The recipe calls for 6 oz. of chocolate chips in the icing, but I've found that an extra ounce makes the icing even more fudgy!)
3. Allow icing to cool slightly (I usually let it cool ~10 minutes), then pour over cake. Refrigerate cake.

**Variation - since the icing recipe calls for 6-7 oz of chocolate chips, I usually buy a 12 oz bag and put the other 5-6 oz in the cake batter. This gives the cake a nice texture when it's done and uses up all my ingredients. (Not that there's anything wrong with having leftover chocolate chips though!) I typically buy the mini-chips because they melt faster in the icing and spread more evenly through the batter. I also occasionally add some maraschino cherries/juice to the batter to make the cherry flavor even more pronounced.