Recipe Wednesday: Anna K. Lanier

This will be the last Recipe Wednesday. I will probably come up with something else to do. In the meantime, welcome Anna K. Lanier.

Hi, Chris. Thanks for having me today. In my novella A GIFT BEYOND ALL MEASURE, Tessa Jones is a cook for a ranch. In one scene she’s going to bake a cake. The cake doesn’t actually get baked because of an emergency and the hero is none too happy that she’s left his house with the oven on. However, I decided that if she were to have baked the cake, Chocolate Covered Cherry Cake is what it would have been. This recipe is one of 27 recipes I’ve included in a FREE pdf companion cookbook for A GIFT BEYOND ALL MEASURE. The cookbook will be available for downloading on my website, www.aklanier.com December 8-31, 2010.




Chocolate Covered Cherry Cake



Ingredients:



Cake:

1 (18.25 oz) plain devil's food cake mix

or devil's food cake mix with pudding

1 (21-oz) can cherry pie filling

2 large eggs

1 tsp. pure almond extract



Glaze:

1 cup sugar

1/3 cup butter

1/3 cup whole milk

1 cup (6-oz pkg) semisweet chocolate chips



Directions:



Place a rack in the center o the oven and preheat 350 degrees. Lightly mist a 9x13-in baking pan with nonstick cooking spray. Set aside.



Place the cake mix, cherry pie filling, eggs and almond extract in a large mixing bowl. Blend with an electric mixer on low speed for 1 minute. Stop mixer and scrape down the sides of bowl with a rubber spatula. Increase the mixer speed to medium and beat for 2 minutes more, scraping the sides down as needed. The batter should look thick and well blended.



Pour batter into the prepared pan, smoothing top with rubber spatula. Place pan in oven. Bake until the cake springs back when lightly pressed with your fingers and just starts to pull away from pan (30-35 minutes).



For the glaze, place the sugar, butter and milk in small saucepan over medium-low heat and cook, stirring constantly, until mixture comes to a boil, about 10 minutes. Boil, stirring constantly for 1 minute.



Remove the pan from heat and stir in chocolate chips. When the chips have melted and the glaze is smooth, pour it over the warm cake so that it covers the entire surface. The glaze will be thin, but will firm up as it cools. Cool cake 20 minutes before cutting into squares and serving.



Serves 20.