Cherry Dr Pepper Cake + Video
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Outrageous Cherry Dr Pepper Cake is an incredibly flavorful cherry chocolate cake recipe with just 5 ingredients that will blow your mind!
Do cherries make you think of summer?
I am not sure what the connection is, but bright red cherries automatically bring my mind to summer, and that is exactly what I was thinking when I picked up some cherry Dr. Pepper soda.
I knew right away I wanted to make a delicious treat it. I mean really isn’t that the best idea ever? We love dump cakes, so I decided to give it a try, but kick it up a notch.
Want cookies instead, we have that covered with our delicious cherry cheesecake cookies.
Cherry Dr Pepper Cake
The rich, decadent and perfectly tender chocolate cake melts in your mouth. Topped with homemade maraschino cherry frosting, it is truly a flavor explosion.
Not only that, but it’s ready to toss in the oven in a flash.
Honestly, I don’t usually make dump cakes, but sometimes you just really need an easy recipe that will impress a crowd. Dr. Pepper cake is all that, and more!
This recipe is very similar to a dump cake, because making Dr Pepper cake with cake mix takes just 5 ingredients.
Everything is dumped together for easy mixing, yet it is perhaps the best tasting cake ever!
Truly a mouthwatering dessert, now please excuse me while I take a moment to gather my thoughts. All I can think about is this cherry chocolate cake. {{slurp}}
If you love chocolate and cherry desserts, you’ll probably want to make our recipe for chocolate cherry tiramisu, too. It’s one of our favorite Valentine desserts.
Recipe Tips
You know, bold flavors are kinda part of who I am, so I added the Dr Pepper Cherry soda and maraschino cherries to the cake mix and then made a super easy maraschino cherry buttercream to go on top.
All with just 5 ingredients. This cake is truly outrageous. Rich, moist and loaded with your favorite flavors. Oh my word! I tell you this cake tastes just like summer.
- I know people love diet soda, but this is not the place for it.
- You can substitute Cherry Coke if you prefer, but the Cherry Dr Pepper gives it an amazing flavor.
- To avoid pink fingers, wear kitchen gloves when working with the cherries.
Storing Dr Pepper Cake
The cherry chocolate cake keeps for about 3-4 days on the kitchen counter. Be sure to keep it wrapped tightly with plastic wrap, especially during the summer.
If your kitchen tends to be warm, store it in the refrigerator to keep the frosting from melting.
Enjoy!
With love, from our simple kitchen to yours.
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Other Chocolate Desserts
Cherry Dr Pepper Cake + Video
Ingredients
- 15.25 ounce box super moist chocolate fudge cake mix, dry
- 12 ounces Dr. Pepper Cherry, room temperature
- 18 ounces maraschino cherries, divided
- 1 cup salted butter
- 7 cups powdered sugar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray a 9x13x2 baking pan with cooking spray. Set aside.
- In a large bowl combine cake mix and soda. Whisk until combined. Set aside.
- Remove 24 cherries from the jar, remove stems and cut cherries into fourths. Add cut cherries to cake batter. Whisk again until combined.
- Pour batter into the prepared baking pan. Smooth with a spatula so the cake is even.
- Place the cake in the center of the oven and bake 30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
- Meanwhile: Add butter to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment (or place in a large bowl and use and hand mixer).
- Beat butter until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
- Add sugar 1 cup at a time until it is all incorporated (beating between each addition).
- Add 3 ounces (6 tablespoons) maraschino cherry juice from the jar and beat until mixture is light and fluffy.
- Frost the cake with all of the icing and garnish with remaining cherries.
Video
Donna’s Notes
Nutrition
All nutritional information is based on third party calculations and is only an estimate. Each recipe’s nutritional value will vary depending on the ingredients used, measuring methods, and portion sizes.
Originally published June 2015. Updated and republished June 2022.
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Made as a bundt cake, and make a glaze using the same ingredients as the frosting. Much lighter! Delicious.
Gonna make it as a bundt cake as well, and drizzle the frosting so hopefully it takes away some of the the extra sweetness!!!
It doesn't indicate how much Dr. Pepper to add to the cake mix, or the icicng? Anyone have the recipe?
12 ounces Dr. Pepper Cherry (room temperature) Added to the dry cak mix, instruction number 2.
It says 12 ounces added to cake mix.
if you cant find it in a can ( like me) and only found it in a 2 liter, 12 oz is 1 1/2 cups.
Thinking of trying this recipe in cupcakes. Anyone else tried it????
omg. that's like heaven. really.
I made this yesterday–we loved it. Next time I will make 2/3 of the icing, it was just a little too thick for us. I think the icing would be great on brownies too! I used a 16 oz jar of cherries and had plenty.
I used extra cherries in cake and love the extra frosting (used extra juice in it and it was yummy).
Was thinking of trying it with regular dr pepper and adding some maraschino cherry juice to fix not having cherry Dr pepper? Not sure if will work but maybe will add a better cherry flavor like it does with other family recipies that was tried on.
Looks and sounds like something I would love!! Pinning it!!
I made this with a gluten free cake mix and it worked really well, but the Dr. Pepper taste was not very prominent. The chocolate and cherry components were spot on and everyone loved it and didn't realize they were missing the gluten!
which brand of gf cake mix did you use? and did you uses the same amounts of everything?
I will make this tomorrow using Betty Crocker's Gluten Free Devil's Food cake mix and I won't need to change anything else about the recipe. Good luck!
I did end up making cupcakes and baking 18 minutes. Waaaaay too much frosting. Will cut it in half next time. My family loved this recipe!!!
I was the queen of the birthday party! My grand daughter asked for a chocolate birthday cake for her 11th birthday. I showed up with this and she was thrilled. Everyone was so impressed. They couldn't believe I used cherry Dr. Pepper to make the cake. I will make this again and again. Can hardly wait until the next birthday! Someone just has to have a birthday any day now.
I made this today and it turned out horrible. I should have looked up the ingredients instead of eyeballing the amounts. I also didn't know the soda should have been room temperature. The batter and icing were both very thin. I am rebuying the ingredients and trying again. This cake looks too yummy to give up.
Good Luck Monica Piel! Please come back and let us know how it goes!
I made this the other day and it was so moist and good. Just made half the frosting and it was plenty for a 9 x 13 pan. Very fragile cake layer tho so have to cut carefully and use spatula to serve or it tends to crumble.
I typically like my cakes cold so I am going to put mine in the refrigerator after I make it.
Could you substitute Diet Dr. Pepper?
Her post (under helpful hints) says no.
The only place that sells Cherry Dr pepper is out can it be substituted? And I have chocolate cake mix not fudge will it still work with another drink and that mix?
You can literally do any can soda with any box cake mix. I'm mix and match sodas and cake mixes all the time. It's just important to know that it cannot be diet soda or sugar free soda. I love doing strawberry cake with Sprite!
Did you change anything else with the recipe when using strawberries and Sprite? I want to make this for my daughter's birthday but she hates cherries, Thanks
Have you ever tried vanilla cake mix with orange soda and mandarin oranges? YUM!!!
you can use diet soda, any kind. it works just the same as reg. soda.
Diet soda may "work" but the aspartame in diet drinks is not good for you and in many cases has been proven to be bad for you. It will also change the taste somewhat. She specifically said NOT to use diet soda.
Regular sugar is just as bad as aspartame when taken in regularly, however I agree with the change in flavor, but it might now be a problem to someone who is used to using sugar substitute. Just saying. I personally like knowing that it can work. I bake/cake decorate and people are always asking me for various alternatives for sugar, glutens, diary, nuts etc.
Regarding the aspartamine issue, you would have consume pounds of the stuff a day over a long period of time for it to have harmful affects on your body. The little bit that's in diet soda is not harmful to you or to the lab rats they tested it on. Please do your research on things like this before you decide to/not to consume.
Just made it today. Used a devil foods cake mix. I made the icing it’s delicious!! But I didn’t need all 7 cups of powdered sugar. Great cake!!!!’ Yum yum the icing is my favorite!!
Awesome! We are happy you enjoyed it!
yes you can, I made it using sugar free cake mix and it worked beautifully, I baked it at 325F instead of 350F, and of course did not use the frosting recipe
made this, the cake is delicious, the frosting is WAY too sweet! only made 1/2 the recipe of frosting and it covered the whole cake,plenty thick just too sweet!
Thanks so much!
Same opinion. Made this today and found the frosting WAY too sweet. I even added an extra 4 Tablespoons of the cherry juice and the leftover cherries and used a mixer so it blended very well. The frosting should not be as thick as the cake! The cake is good, though, so I will make only half of the frosting next time or maybe find another recipe for a cherry drizzle or glaze.
We have the same issue with the frosting, did not care for it at all. I am either going to look into a cherry glaze or a whipped topping/cherry style frosting.
I am going to try whip cream frosting and add the cherry juice to the cream.
May be a dumb question but do you cool the cake completely before frosting it?
Hi Judy! Yes I would let the cake completely cool before frosting. Hope that helps, enjoy!
Try sugar free chocolate cake mix and diet cherry Dr. pepper…it's amazing
did you add cheerys to the cake mix
Yes, recipe says cut 24 cherries into 4ths and add to cake mix. 🙂
If I only have regular Dr. Pepper, how much of the coke do I cut out to add the cheery juice? I'm thinking 8-4? Also if I use heavy cream and cream cheese, how much cheery juice will be too much? It 8oz cheese/8oz cream T.I.A
For the butter, is it a total of 1 cup butter, or actually 2? The recipe almost sounds like I need 2 cups…but there is no such thing as a 1-cup stick of butter, right?
Actually, a stick of butter is 8 oz which is 1 cup. So you do need two sticks of butter.
No, a stick of butter is 1/2 cup
So I love the recipe. I just did not taste much cherry in the icing so I used a little Almond extract. Maybe I ate too many cherries while making cake 😉 but the icing flavor was light
No, it means two sticks of butter. Two sticks of butter equal 1 cup. So, if you don't use sticks, make sure the measurement is 1 cup.
Tried and loved
I made this using red velvet cake mix and coke. I used 10 ounces of coke with 2 ounces of cherry juice from the cherry jar. I also used cream cheese instead of butter for the frosting and cut the powdered sugar back to 4 cups. It was more than enough for the 9×13 pan. My cake turned out so good.
Can You Use Cool Whip For The Icing And Add The Cherry's ? 7 Cups Of Powdered Sugar Seems A Bit Much.
with cool whip you can add 1 small box of vanilla or white choclate pudding and 1 small container of yougurt mix all and put on top of cake …….you can also use white cake mix with any flavor soda then coordinate your yougurt with it then it I use all sugar free items for hubby who is diebetic
Great idea with cool whip. Thanks.
That's a good idea as long as you put it in fridge. I may try it as well.
I just now realized that the icing calls for salted butter. I only have unsalted should I add just a little salt to the icing mix??
you can use diet soda if you had the amount of eggs off the back of the mix
as we make a weight watcher cake using soda cake mix and eggs as the base
I don't like butter cream icing because of the sweetness but stuff shipped cream with a drop of two of cherry extract and red food coloring would do nicely. I first almost all my cakes with whipped cream icing as it is so much lighter.