Holiday Cheer - Chocolate Covered Cherry Cake

I had hoped to 'publish' a new cookbook this year, but life got in the way and I didn't do it. So, I decided to upload last year's A GIFT BEYOND ALL MEASURE COOKBOOK.  Below is one of the 27-mouthwatering recipes in the cookbook.

Chocolate Covered Cherry Cake


Ingredients:

Cake:

1 (18.25 oz) plain devil's food cake mix
or devil's food cake mix with pudding
1 (21-oz) can cherry pie filling
2 large eggs
1 tsp. pure almond extract

Glaze:
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup butter
1/3 cup whole milk
1 cup (6-oz pkg) semisweet chocolate chips

Directions:

Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat 350 degrees. Lightly mist a 9x13-in baking pan with nonstick cooking spray. Set aside.

Place the cake mix, cherry pie filling, eggs and almond extract in a large mixing bowl. Blend with an electric mixer on low speed for 1 minute. Stop mixer and scrape down the sides of bowl with a rubber spatula. Increase the mixer speed to medium and beat for 2 minutes more, scraping the sides down as needed. The batter should look thick and well blended.

Pour batter into the prepared pan, smoothing top with rubber spatula. Place pan in oven. Bake until the cake springs back when lightly pressed with your fingers and just starts to pull away from pan (30-35 minutes).

For the glaze, place the sugar, butter and milk in small saucepan over medium-low heat and cook, stirring constantly, until mixture comes to a boil, about 10 minutes. Boil, stirring constantly for 1 minute.

Remove the pan from heat and stir in chocolate chips. When the chips have melted and the glaze is smooth, pour it over the warm cake so that it covers the entire surface. The glaze will be thin, but will firm up as it cools. Cool cake 20 minutes before cutting into squares and serving.

Serves 20.

A GIFT BEYOND ALL MEASURE COOKBOOK