Cherry Chocolate Dump Cake

by Sabrina Snyder

Last Update:

16 Comments

5 from 7 votes
12 servings
Prep Time 5 minutes
Cook Time 45 minutes
Cool 5 minutes
Total Time 55 minutes
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Cherry Chocolate Dump Cake is a one dish dessert with only three ingredients- making this one of the easiest but tastiest recipes you make!

Easy desserts like Apple Dump Cake and Cherry Pineapple Dump Cake are great for weeknight treats or potlucks, and sweet enough for Valentine’s Day! Check out even more delicious, easy to make Cake Recipes for your loved ones.

Chocolate Cake with cherries and ice cream
Collage of chocolate cake with ice cream and cake in a pan

Sabrina’s Cherry Chocolate Dump Cake Recipe

Spoil your loved ones this year with a yummy Valentine’s Day dessert like this easy chocolate cake! Made with only three ingredients, this cake is ready for the oven in less than 5 minutes. The hardest thing about Chocolate Cherry Dump Cake is opening the cans.

Recipe Card

Dinner, then Dessert

Cherry Chocolate Dump Cake Recipe

Cherry Chocolate Dump Cake is a one dish dessert with only three ingredients- making this one of the easiest but tastiest recipes you make!
Yield 12 servings
Prep Time 5 minutes
Cook Time 45 minutes
Total Time 55 minutes
Course Dessert
Cuisine American
Author Sabrina Snyder
Chocolate Cake with cherries and ice cream
PrintRate

Ingredients
 

  • 2 cans cherry pie filling , 20 oz each
  • 1 box dark chocolate cake mix , (15.25 ounces)
  • 3/4 cup unsalted butter , melted

Instructions

  • Heat oven to 350 degrees. Spray bottom of 9×13 inch glass baking dish with cooking spray.
  • Spread cherry pie filling in baking dish.
  • Top with dry cake mix; gently shake pan to distribute evenly.
  • Pour melted butter over top, tilting pan to cover as much of top with butter as possible.
  • Bake 42 to 45 minutes or until mostly dry on top and bubbly around edges.
  • Allow to cool for 5 minutes before serving. Serve warm with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

Nutrition

Calories: 328kcal | Carbohydrates: 53g | Protein: 2g | Fat: 13g | Saturated Fat: 8g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 0.5g | Monounsaturated Fat: 3g | Trans Fat: 0.5g | Cholesterol: 31mg | Sodium: 297mg | Potassium: 107mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 13g | Vitamin A: 557IU | Vitamin C: 4mg | Calcium: 14mg | Iron: 0.2mg

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Note from Sabrina

For the best texture, pour the melted butter as evenly as possible over the dry cake mix, tilting the pan if needed to cover any dry patches. This helps create a perfectly crisp, buttery topping with no powdery spots while the cherry filling bubbles underneath.

Table of contents

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About this Recipe

This dessert melts in your mouth like a fudge lava cake meets a cherry pie. If you’ve never had a dump cake with cake mix, your world is about to change for the better! These cakes are so incredibly yummy, and the cherry pie filling keeps every bite moist for days. The wonderful thing about easy cake mix recipes like Cherry Chocolate Dump Cake is that you can easily make it so many ways with ingredients you have in your pantry. Stir in chocolate chips, change the pie filling, add almond extract, or use any of the Variations below to give you some ideas.

Ingredients

  • Cake Mix: Choose a good, rich flavored chocolate cake. A dark chocolate cake is a good option, even adding in additional chocolate chips is a great idea. Avoid any large lumps in the cake mix, this won’t absorb enough liquid to cook evenly.
  • Cherry Pie Filling: Use two full cans, this adds a lot of moisture and plenty of cherry filling per bowl you serve.
  • Butter: Make sure you are careful to pour the butter over the cake mix evenly to help prevent dry spots.

Can this be made ahead of time?

Cherry Chocolate Dump Cake can be made ahead of time by preparing the cake in the baking pan and then refrigerating for about one day before baking. You can also freeze a baked cake for about 3 months so you always have a delicious cake ready to go!  Thaw overnight in the fridge and reheat at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes.

Pairing Suggestions

Dump cakes like this Cherry Chocolate Cake are best served warm, tasting almost like a melty chocolate cherry cobbler. You can top with chocolate frosting but it tastes amazing with a scoop of Vanilla Ice Cream. Cool vanilla ice cream with a warm melty chocolate cake is just a perfect combination. For a more tart dessert, mix in fresh cherries to the cherry pie filling. You can also top this cake with Whipped Cream and maraschino cherries, or serve just how it is. There’s no wrong way to make or eat this tasty treat, it’s that easy!

How to Store

  • Serve: This cake can be kept at room temperature for about 2 hours before you should store it.
  • Store: Keep Cherry Chocolate Cake in an airtight container for up to a week in the refrigerator.
  • Freeze: This chocolate cake can be frozen for up 3 months. Cool completely before freezing and thaw in the fridge overnight to serve.

Slow Cooker Method

  • Method 1: For a dump cake recipe, simply pour both cans of cherry pie filling into the slow cooker. Combine cake mix and 1 stick of butter until crumble texture. Sprinkle cake mix over pie filling and cook on low for 4 hours or 2 hours on high.
  • Method 2: Spray slow cooker with cooking spray. Prepare cake batter by mixing 1 can cherry pie filling and 3 large eggs with cake mix. Pour cake batter into the slow cooker and cook on low for 3 hours or until no wet spots and cake pulls away from the sides a bit. Top with remaining cherry pie filling.

Variations

  • Nuts: Give your cake some crunch and stir in a handful of chopped walnuts or pecans to the cake batter.
  • Flavoring: Mix a teaspoon of vanilla extract or almond extract into the cherry pie filling before adding to the baking pan to ramp up the flavor.
  • Frosting: Top your cake with chocolate Buttercream Frosting or Chocolate Ganache.
  • Chocolate Chips: Chocolate cake can always use more chocolate! Stir white chocolate chips, dark chocolate chips, or milk chocolate chips into the dry cake mix before topping the cherry pie filling.
  • Pie Filling: You can use other fruit or pie fillings instead of the cherry pie filling like blackberry, strawberry, or a berry medley filling.
  • Cake Mix: For a richer chocolate cake use Devil’s food cake mix or German chocolate cake mix. For cherry pie cake, use a vanilla cake mix. 
  • Cupcakes: Easily make these into mini cupcakes and bake in a muffin tin in two batches to make 24 cupcakes. Line a muffin pan with cupcake liners and divide one can cherry pie filling into each cup. Top with half of the cake mix and then pour half the melted butter over cake mix. Bake for 20-22 minutes at 350 degrees.

More Yummy Cherry Chocolate Dessert Recipes

cake pin image

Photos used in previous version of post

Cherry Chocolate Dump Cake collage

About the Author: Sabrina Snyder

Sabrina is a professionally trained Private Chef of over 10 years with ServSafe Manager certification in food safety. She creates all the recipes here on Dinner, then Dessert, fueled in no small part by her love for bacon.

Sabrina Snyder is a professionally trained personal and private chef of over 10 years who is the creator and developer of all the recipes on Dinner, then Dessert.

She is also the author of the cookbook Dinner, then Dessert – Satisfying Meals Using Only 3, 5 or 7 Ingredients, published by Harper Collins.

She started Dinner, then Dessert as a business in her office as a lunch service for her coworkers who admired her lunches before going to culinary school and becoming a full time personal chef and private chef.

As a personal chef Sabrina would cook for families one day a week and cook their entire week of dinners. All grocery shopping, cooking and cleaning was done along with instructions on reheating. As a private chef she cooked for private parties and cooked in family homes in the evenings for families on a nightly basis after working as a personal chef during the day.

Sabrina has been certified as a ServSafe Manager since 2007 and was a longstanding member of the USPCA Personal Chef Association including being on the board of the Washington DC Chapter of Chefs in the US Personal Chef Association when they won Chapter of the year.

As a member of the community of food website creators Sabrina Snyder has spoken at many conferences regarding her experiences as a food writer including the Indulge Food Conference, Everything Food Conference, Haven Food Conference and IACP Annual Food Professionals Conference.

Sabrina lives with her family in sunny California.

See more posts by Sabrina

Dinner, then Dessert, Inc. owns the copyright on all images and text and does not allow for its original recipes and pictures to be reproduced anywhere other than at this site unless authorization is given. Read my disclosure and copyright policy. This post may contain affiliate links.

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Comments

  1. Just made this for a barbecue this weekend. This awesome cake and a huge hit with the family. I added dark chocolate chips and chocolate icing. Its a very rich desert but sooo good.

    Reply

  5. You had me at 3 ingredients and chocolate. I’m a lover of all things chocolate especially when they are this easy.

    Reply

  8. OMG chocolate and cherries? How can this be anything other than DELISH!? Would love this with a dollop of sour cream right now!

    Reply