When life gives you cherries...

I've been taking a cake decorating break. It's been nice: I've had time for my other hobbies, I've had time to relax, so on and so forth. I'm going to start up again shortly (Janelle and I are planning on an entire Saturday to make our first wedding cake), but I think I need to confess something first.

I'm not a big fan of cake.

Cakes you buy at bakeries have too much frosting on them and that frosting is usually too sweet for me. And then the cake, well, it usually doesn't taste that great without any frosting. So I stay away from cake when I can. I don't have birthday cake these days; I have pie. (In fact my next two - at least - entries will be about pie.)

I also stay away from cherries when I can. Not that there's anything wrong with the way cherries taste, I just happen to have had an unfortunate incident in my youth when the cherries in my stomach ended up in an obliging front yard after a long and winding car ride.

I've confessed all of this because I need you to understand that the next thing I'm going to write is the absolute truth: My favorite kind of cake in the world is Chocolate Cherry Cake, as introduced to me by my college roommate Natalie, and this is how you make it.

Chocolate Cherry Cake

1 chocolate cake mix
20-21 oz. can of cherry pie filling
2 eggs
1-1/2 c. chocolate chips
1 c. sugar
1/3 c. milk
5 tablespoons butter or margarine

Mix the cake mix, pie filling and eggs together and bake in a preheated oven for 30 minutes at 350*F. (Check the cake at 25 minutes)

After the cake is done baking and cooled down, in a sauce pan, boil the milk, butter and sugar for 1 minute. Remove from the burner. Stir in the chocolate chips until melted.

Pour the glaze over the cake and chill in the refrigerator until the frosting is set. Best served cold.