This Chocolate Cherry Cola Cake is a deep, dark chocolate with sweet cherry undertones and topped with a sweet marshmallow frosting and loads of chocolate covered cherries!

This post is sponsored by Betty Crocker.

We just wrapped up Birthday Season in our house, and I have to confess that I was a total planning-dud this year. Emma’s was okay, only because we did two parties for her (one pre-move, and one after). But even the more decent of her two parties was somewhat haphazardly thrown together by me on the morning of.

And as for mine and Chris’s birthdays… suffice it to say they both had store-bought cakes and an abundance of the phrase, “Oh, can this count as one of your gifts? Thanks.”

I don’t know what happened… I meant for them to be super cute and fun, but I just kept running out of time.

Don’t get me wrong– I think all of our birthdays managed to be special and fun, despite the shocking lack of streamers and balloons! But, I think a little bit of planning and some cute ideas could have gone a long way, even with the crazy busy summer we had.

The Betty Crocker Birthdays book is awesome. The cake recipes are all right up my alley! All the recipes use cake mix and/or canned frosting (EASY!), but they use them in really creative “doctored-up” ways. This Chocolate Cherry Cola Cake recipe jumped out at me right away.

It’s deep, dark chocolatey with sweet cherry undertones and topped with a sweet marshmallow frosting and loads of chocolate covered cherries! Besides being delicious, you know what the best part is? It is so easy to make. It’s incredibly simple, yet incredibly impressive once it’s all put together.

I’m obsessed with cherry cola (obsessed) and love that it pairs so well with my other great passion in life— chocolate. So this cake makes me happy in all sorts of ways.

Not the least of which being: HOW CUTE are cherries?!? And cherries + cola + chocolate all together?! It’s like the trifecta of beautiful colors, textures, and tastes! Not to mention that these are all super easy party elements to work with. All of them are easily available year-round (think maraschino cherries), and the colors are easy to find as well!

Part of my corroboration with Betty Crocker includes curating a #GetYourBettyOn Pin Board (which you can find here), inspired by Betty Crocker flavors. And I’m going to be pinning lots of cute birthday/party ideas that coordinate with the cake recipes I’m posting here. See? Easy. Everything you need for an awesome birthday party, all in one place 🙂

I found all sorts of really cute things you could do for a birthday party themed around this Chocolate Cherry Cola Cake! You can find alllllllll of them on my pin board here.

Chocolate Cherry Cola Cake

Ingredients

10-ounce jar maraschino cherries, drained and reserve the juice
1 box devil's food cake mix with pudding
1 cup cherry cola
1/2 cup vegetable oil
3 eggs
1 cup marshmallow cream
1 container vanilla whipped ready-to-spread frosting
Optional: additional maraschino cherries and melting chocolate (candy melts, not chocolate chips) for the chocolate covered cherry garnish

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350ºF. Grease a 9x13 baking dish or a 10-inch round.
Chop maraschino cherries and set aside. In a large mixing bowl, mic together the cake mix, cola, oil, eggs, and the reserved cherry juice until a batter forms. Stir in the chopped cherries.
Bake for 35-45 minutes, until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Let cool completely, about 1 hour.
Using a hand mixer or small food processor, mix together the marshmallow cream and canned frosting. Spread over top of the cake.
Optional: pat dry maraschino cherries. Melt the chocolate melting candy according to directions on package. Dip each cherry in the chocolate and place on non-stick surface to dry. Place cherries on top of the cake as a garnish.

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Betty Crocker . The opinions and text are all mine.