By: Jill Mills Updated: Jul 7, 2024

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Cherry Cake is one of my absolute favorite cake recipes and we show you how to make two different versions. One uses Maraschino cherries and the other one uses cherry pie filling – both are incredibly easy to make.

Easy Cherry Cake Recipe

Everyone always requests cherry cake and I make it often. I had a hard time picking my favorite version because they are both so good, so I am including both recipes. The cakes start with a boxed white cake mix with different add-ins like Maraschino cherries and cherry pie filling. Since I can’t choose which one I like more, you will have to leave me a comment letting me know which one you like the best. Both of bursting with cherry and always a hit when served to guests.

Ingredients You Will Need:

White Cake Mix – both use a boxed white cake mix.
Maraschino Cherries – the juice if needed for the 5-ingredient cake.
Cherry Pie Filling – this is needed for the 4-ingredient cherry cake version.
Frostings: for the cherry pie cake cake, I use a cream cheese frosting flavored with almond extract. The maraschino cake uses my vanilla buttercream frosting.

How To Make Cherry Cake using Cherry Pie Filling

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Mix the cherry pie filling, sour cream and eggs, then pour into the prepared baking dish.
Bake for 35-40 minutes. Cool before adding the vanilla buttercream frosting.

How to Make Maraschino Cherry Cake

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Blend the Maraschino cherries.
Combine the white cake mix with the eggs, oil and water. Mix in the Jello mix and pureed cherries.
Pour the cake batter into the prepared baking dish and bake for 30 minutes.
Let cool and then frost the cake with the almond cream cheese frosting.

Tips and Tricks

Frosting – I highly recommend the frostings listed in the recipe, but feel free top with whipped cream or a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
Variations – use homemade cherry pie filling instead of canned. Turn these into a chocolate cherry cake by adding in chocolate chips or replacing the cream cheese frosting with chocolate buttercream frosting.
Fresh Cherries – You can use fresh sweet cherries, but I have never tried it. Fresh cherries take more time to pit and cut up, and the taste may come out more subtle! This is a white cake with cherry juice and the other wet ingredients are water and oil. If you really want to use fresh cherries you will still need some cherry juice to get that cherry flavor. I would also recommend adding chopped cherries into the batter for more cherry flavor as well.

Storing and Freezing

Storing – I store the Maraschino cherry cake in an airtight container at room temperature. For the cherry pie cake, I store in the refrigerator since we use cream cheese in the frosting.
Freezing cake is always a great way to keep a dessert on hand. I like to do this when there is more cake than we will eat before it goes bad. I freeze the cake on a plate first so that the frosting freezes first. This prevents the frosting from sticking to the plastic. Then you can wrap the cake with plastic. Be sure to remove the plastic wrap before letting it thaw.