Cherry Cake {A Scratch Recipe}
Oh how we LOVE this amazing Cherry Cake recipe from scratch! We are so happy to have another tried & true homemade recipe for our collection of favorite cakes.
I love light, fruit flavored cakes any time of the year, but especially in the spring and summer. This versatile and flavorful recipe deserves a place in your recipe box!
It seems that Cherry Cake is an often overlooked cake superstar when it comes to cakes with fruit.
Often Strawberry Cakes or Lemon Cakes are the first to spring to our minds when planning our dessert menus for summertime gatherings.
While we've included SO many favorite fruity cakes in our Recipes Section, don't overlook this amazing homemade Cherry Cake! It just might become a new favorite.
Table of Contents
Why We Love It
- The cherry cake layers have a moist, tender crumb.
- Light cherry flavor (from cherries, maraschino cherry juice, and a splash of cherry extract)
- Beautiful slices with bits of maraschino cherries
- Perfect for spring and summer birthdays
How to make a Cherry Cake
You can find the full, printable cherry cake recipe below, with complete instructions and ingredients. Here is a quick look at our steps!
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F, grease and flour three 8 inch round pans.
- In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder and salt for at least 30 seconds
- In another bowl, add the egg whites, cherry juice, milk, vanilla and cherry extract, and vegetable oil. Blend together with a fork
- In the bowl of your mixer add the softened butter and mix at medium speed to soften. Next, add the sugar and continue to mix for a few minutes until lightened in color and fluffy.
- With the mixer on low speed, we will now alternate between adding dry and wet ingredients. Add approximately one third of the flour mixture to the bowl, mixing on low speed until just blended. Add about half of the wet ingredients and blend, and so on. Continue alternating the dry and wet ingredients (ending with dry). We do three additions of dry, two of wet. Mix just until blended.
- Reserve approximately 2 Tablespoons chopped cherries. Gently stir the remaining chopped cherries into the batter.
- Once the batter is divided between the three prepared cake pans, sprinkle the reserved cherries over the top of the batter, using a toothpick push them just slightly below the surface of the cake batter.
- Bake at 350 degrees F for 30-35 minutes, when the cake springs back to the touch or a toothpick pulls out clean or with only a few crumbs attached, the cake is done.
- Cool the cake layers in the pans, one a wire rack, for ten minutes before turning out.
- This cherry cake recipes makes 7 ½ cups cake batter.
Versatility of this Cherry Cake Recipe
This moist scratch Cherry Cake recipe is tender, flavorful, and is the prettiest shade of pink. While soft, the cake layers are sturdy enough to be covered in a layer of fondant. The cherry cake batter makes for beautiful homemade cupcakes also.
Frost or drizzle this delightful Cherry Cake with decadent chocolate ganache for a "Chocolate Covered Cherry" cake, coat it with luxurious Cherry Cream Cheese Frosting, or add a bit of cherry extract to your favorite vanilla buttercream!
More Cherry Cakes
If you love cherry cakes, don't miss these other delicious recipes! We have tons of fruity cake recipes to share with you. You'll find cakes from scratch as well as cake mix recipes on our site. Here are a few cherry cake favorites:
- Cherry Chocolate Chip Cake (pictured below)
- Chocolate Covered Cherry Cake
- Cherry Layer Cake- Doctored Cake Mix Recipe
- Black Forest Cake
- Cherry Cream Cheese Frosting
Summer Cakes
If you're looking for more fruity Summertime Cake Recipes, don't miss our Roundup of favorites! Summertime Cake Roundup
Thanks for stopping by! If you try our Cherry Cake recipe, make sure to let us know what you think in the comments below! We think you're going to love this one!
Enjoy the Recipe
Have you made this? We would LOVE for you to leave a ⭐️ rating as well as a comment and photo below! We really appreciate your feedback!
Cherry Cake from Scratch
This moist and flavorful Cherry Cake from Scratch is one of our favorites! Keep it in mind for spring and summer gatherings!
Ingredients
- 3 cups (342g) cake flour plus 2 Tablespoons for dusting cherries
- 1Tablespoon (15g) baking powder
- ½ teaspoon (2g) salt
- 6 egg whites (180g)
- ⅔ cup (146g) cherry juice from a 10 ounce bottle of maraschino cherries, if there is not enough juice to reach ⅔'s cup add water or milk
- ¾ cup (172g) milk
- 1 teaspoon (4g) vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon (4g) cherry extract
- ¼ cup (54g) vegetable oil
- 2 cups (400g) granulated sugar
- 1 cup (2 sticks) (226g) unsalted butter, slightly softened but still cold to the touch
- maraschino cherries from a 10 ounce jar (use all) chopped and dusted with 2 Tablespoons flour
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour 3 (8 inch) round pans
- In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder and salt for at least 30 seconds
- In another bowl, add the egg whites, cherry juice, milk, vanilla and cherry extract, and vegetable oil. Blend together with a fork.
- In the bowl of your mixer add the butter and beat at medium speed to soften. Add the sugar and continue to beat until lightened in color and fluffy, approximately 3 minutes, longer if using a hand mixer.
- With the mixer on low speed, we will now alternate between adding dry and wet ingredients. Add approximately one third of the flour mixture to the bowl, mixing on low speed until just blended. Add about half of the wet ingredients and blend, and so on. Continue alternating the dry and wet ingredients (ending with dry). We do three additions of dry, two of wet. Mix just until blended.
- Reserve approximately 2 Tablespoons chopped cherries. Gently stir the remaining chopped cherries into the batter. Divide the batter between the three prepared 8 inch cake pans.
- Once the batter is in the cake pans, sprinkle the reserved cherries over the top of the batter, and using a toothpick push them just slightly below the surface of the cake batter. Even though the flour is supposed to keep the cherries from sinking to the bottom of the pan, I find that most will, so this is my reason for adding a few to the top.
- Bake for 30 - 35 minutes, when the cake springs back to the touch or a toothpick pulls out clean or with only a few crumbs attached, the cake is done. Allow to cool in the pans on a wire rack for ten minutes before turning out.
- Makes 7 ½ cups cake batter
- Works well for cupcakes and Will hold up to fondant
Notes
The cherry cake layers can be made in advance and frozen. To freeeze the cake layers, we like to place each layer individually on its own foil wrapped cardboard cake circle. Wrap with plastic wrap followed by aluminum foil. Freeze for up to three months.
Thaw on the kitchen counter, still wrapped for 30-45 minutes before unwrapping and thawing to desired amount. Some bakers prefer to assemble their cakes while the layers are still partially frozen as they are less fragile.
HI, we loved the cake! What can I do to cut down on the sweetness of the cake? That was the only thing wrong, too sweet. Also, when I went to put the cherries into flour, it all became gluggy. Would you have a solution? I drained the cherries, let them sit out, then put them into a bowl of flour. The cherries still sank to the bottom, which I did not notice. My husband picked it up! But, he loved the cake. Now, he is diagnosed with diabetes, I have to figure out how to make a diabetic cherry cake! Any suggestions?
Hi Sarah, Thanks for giving the recipe a try. The cherry juice does add extra sweetness to this cake. You could cut the cherry juice to 1/3 cup and increase the milk to 1 cup plus 2 Tablespoons. This should help. As for the cherries, I cut them into small pieces and dusted with flour. They will be lighter and less likely to sink. I am sorry that your husband has been diagnosed with diabetes. He won't be able to eat this. I'm sorry I don't have the answer for turning this into a diabetic cake, but there should be online sites with recipes and you could probably find one that cherries can be added to. Good Luck
Hello Sarah,
Sorry for not replying sooner but I have been away from a computer. I have used the cherry cake recipe for both cupcakes and cakes and found it a little on the sweet side but the children loved them so I didn't think twice about it. I always dust cherries in flour and it works quite well. I am making the notation of reducing the cherry juice and increasing the milk the next time I make this cake. Thanks for the suggestion.
Hi, actually I failed to comment that I did dust the cherries with flour, it became a large gooy glob, and the cherries did sink to the bottom. Although I didn't mind, others might not appreciate the cherries on the bottom.
Being Maraschino cherries what else can be done to prevent the wetness of the cherries? I did paper towel them to absorb some moisture, but, being cut and wet, the flour covering did not help.
Hi Sarah, I had no problem. I drained the cherries and used a paper towel to absorb them. After cutting I put them on another paper towel. I may have used a couple at a time to absorb the cherries. When I tossed them with the flour I used the least amount necessary, ran a fork through them and added them to the batter right away. It's been since July that I baked this cake so I am trying to recall . I probably put the cherries on a double sheet of paper towel top and bottom and patted them. I always use Bounty paper towels so I am not sure if the one that you used might not have been absorbing enough?
Hi Sarah, I am sorry you had a problem with all the cherries sinking. I did as Patricia and used paper towels to remove some of the moisture after the cherries were cut. You could also try just leaving the cut cherries on the paper towel to air dry a bit before tossing with flour. Also, after the cake batter is in the pans, I sprinkled the 2 Tablespoons of reserved cherries over the top of the cake batter, and using a fork I gently pushed those cherries into the cake batter.
Thanks for your post, Patricia.
Can I substitute cheery puree for maraschino cherry juice?
Hi Gail, In the list of ingredients is 2/3 cup maraschino cherry juice. Do you mean you do not want to cut up the cherries to blend into the batter? You can leave them out but visually they are pretty.
Yes, the cherries in the cake are very beautiful when the cake is sliced. Especially when the cake looks white.
I have a question, can I add the cherries to a Angle Food cake? What quantity?
I don't want to use araschino cherry juice, but want to make my own cherry puree. Will this work?
That's what I'm wanting to know as well. There's a strawberry cake I make buy using a lb of strawberry puree That's been reduced down to a 1/2 cup. The texture of that reduction is like a slightly thick paste. Could this be used? If so is there any liquid ingredient I should reduce in amount or cut out altogether?
Hi Tammy, We have not tried making my own cherry juice but it should work. It will not give you the same pink color as the maraschino
cherry juice. If you reduce an amount of pureed cherries down to 2/3's cup (146 g) as written in the recipe it should work. If you do not have quite 2/3's cup add enough water or milk to make 2/3's.
I made this. It is exceptional. Unfortunately I used salted butter in my frosting. Guess what I won't be doing again so now I buy all my real butter unsalted because you never know when you'll need it. Good stuff. Anyway, this turned out to be a great cake and that's what I wanted for my birthday, I have every year since I was 5 because that's what my mom use to make me. Cherry chip cake. I don't know where she would find it but I have always loved cherry cake every since. She was glad I found this too. Thank you.
Hi Brenda! I'm so happy that you liked the recipe!