Outrageous Cherry Dr Pepper Cake is an incredibly flavorful cherry chocolate cake recipe with just 5 ingredients that will blow your mind!
Chocolate Cherry Dr Pepper Cake
I almost called this a chocolate dump cake, because from frosting to cake, this simple Dr Pepper cake using cake mix takes just 5 ingredients and it is perhaps the easiest and tastiest cake ever.
The rich, decadent and perfectly tender cake melts in your mouth. Topped with homemade maraschino cherry frosting is it truly a flavor explosion.
And it is and ready to toss in the oven in a flash. Honestly I don't usually make dump cakes, but sometime you just really need an easy recipe that will impress a crowd.
Truly a mouthwatering dessert, now please excuse me while I take a moment to gather my thoughts. All I can think about is this cake. {{slurp}}
By the way, be sure to check out our new format. Thank you for all of your feedback in our reader survey. We have a new recipe card and easy to navigate page layout.
We look forward to hearing what you think about it. Also, the print function is accessible without leaving this page. We are so excited. We will have then entire site updated in the coming months!
Dr Pepper Cake Using Cake Mix
Don't 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 Dr. Pepper Cherry.
I knew right away I wanted to make a delicious treat with Dr. Pepper Cherry. I mean really isn't that the best idea ever?
I had heard about dump cakes and I decided to give it a try, but kick it up a notch.
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.
Speaking of simple recipes, of course our new cookbook {The Simple Kitchen - available to order now}is packed with delicious, easy recipes.
The Simple Kitchen is loaded with more than 75 BRAND NEW recipes and a hand full of family favorites too.
8 chapters with a total of 82 quick and easy recipes that are bursting with flavor!!!
Every recipe has a photo that will make your mouth water. It has slow cooker meals, one-pot recipes, quick dinners, simple appetizers, desserts and more!!!
And we have included kitchen tips to make dinnertime less stressful.
We are so excited to share our recipes with you!!! So, don't wait. Go and grab yours today! The Simple Kitchen <-- click here to order.
Helpful Tips to Make Cherry Dr Pepper Cake:
- 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.
- This cake keeps for about 3-4 days on the kitchen counter wrapped tightly with plastic wrap. During the summer, or if your kitchen is warm, store in the refrigerator.
What you will need to make Cherry Dr Pepper Dump Cake:
- 9x13 baking pan – the perfect pan for blondies, brownies and many other delicious desserts. I love this one with the cover.
- Maraschino Cherries
Enjoy!
With love from our simple kitchen to yours.
Do you ❤ love ❤ TSRI? Don't miss another recipe. Click here to Subscribe to The Slow Roasted Italian by Email and receive new recipes in your inbox every day!
Check out more of our favorite chocolate cake recipes:
Best Ever Simple Chocolate Cake
Ooey Gooey Insanity Cake
Death By Chocolate Cake
Chocolate Dipped Strawberry Cupcakes
Hot Chocolate Cupcakes
Best Ever Simple Chocolate Cake
Ooey Gooey Insanity Cake
Death By Chocolate Cake
Chocolate Dipped Strawberry Cupcakes
Hot Chocolate Cupcakes
See how easy it is to make Outrageous Cherry Dr Pepper Cake. Watch the video!!!
Yield: 20
Outrageous Cherry Dr Pepper Cake
Outrageous Cherry Dr Pepper Cake is an incredibly flavorful cherry chocolate cake recipe with just 5 ingredients that will blow your mind!
prep time: 10 MINScook time: 30 MINStotal time: 40 mins
ingredients
- 1 (15.25 ounce) box super moist chocolate fudge cake mix (dry)
- 12 ounces Dr. Pepper Cherry (room temperature)
- 1 (18 ounce) jar maraschino cherries, divided
- 2 (1 cup) sticks salted butter (room temperature)
- 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.
DONNA'S NOTES:
- Do not add the ingredients that the cake mix calls for. This recipe is just for the dry mix.
- If icing is too thick, add more cherry juice 1 tablespoon at a time until you reach your desired consistency, beating in between each addition.
- If it is too thin add powdered sugar 1 tablespoon at a time until you reach your desired consistency, beating in between each addition.
Recipe developed by Donna Elick - The Slow Roasted Italian
Copyright ©2015 The Slow Roasted Italian – All rights reserved.
Copyright ©2015 The Slow Roasted Italian – All rights reserved.
Disclosure: Posts may contain affiliate links. If you purchase a product through an affiliate link your price will remain the same and The Slow Roasted Italian will automatically receive a small commission. Thank you for supporting us, it helps us keep creating new recipes.
Made as a bundt cake, and make a glaze using the same ingredients as the frosting. Much lighter! Delicious.
ReplyDeleteGonna make it as a bundt cake as well, and drizzle the frosting so hopefully it takes away some of the the extra sweetness!!!
DeleteIt doesn't indicate how much Dr. Pepper to add to the cake mix, or the icicng? Anyone have the recipe?
Delete12 ounces Dr. Pepper Cherry (room temperature) Added to the dry cak mix, instruction number 2.
DeleteIt says 12 ounces added to cake mix.
Deleteif you cant find it in a can ( like me) and only found it in a 2 liter, 12 oz is 1 1/2 cups.
DeleteThinking of trying this recipe in cupcakes. Anyone else tried it????
ReplyDeleteomg. that's like heaven. really.
ReplyDeleteI 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.
ReplyDeleteI used extra cherries in cake and love the extra frosting (used extra juice in it and it was yummy).
DeleteLooks and sounds like something I would love!! Pinning it!!
ReplyDeleteI 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!
ReplyDeletewhich brand of gf cake mix did you use? and did you uses the same amounts of everything?
DeleteI 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!
DeleteI 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!!!
ReplyDeleteI 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.
ReplyDeleteI 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.
ReplyDeleteGood Luck Monica Piel! Please come back and let us know how it goes!
DeleteI 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.
DeleteI typically like my cakes cold so I am going to put mine in the refrigerator after I make it.
DeleteCould you substitute Diet Dr. Pepper?
ReplyDeleteHer post (under helpful hints) says no.
DeleteThe 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?
ReplyDeleteYou 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!
DeleteDid 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
DeleteHave you ever tried vanilla cake mix with orange soda and mandarin oranges? YUM!!!
Deleteyou can use diet soda, any kind. it works just the same as reg. soda.
DeleteDiet 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.
DeleteRegular 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.
DeleteRegarding 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.
DeleteJust 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!!
ReplyDeleteAwesome! We are happy you enjoyed it!
Deleteyes 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
ReplyDeletemade 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!
ReplyDeleteThanks so much!
DeleteSame 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.
DeleteWe 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.
DeleteI am going to try whip cream frosting and add the cherry juice to the cream.
DeleteMay be a dumb question but do you cool the cake completely before frosting it?
ReplyDeleteHi Judy! Yes I would let the cake completely cool before frosting. Hope that helps, enjoy!
DeleteTry sugar free chocolate cake mix and diet cherry Dr. pepper...it's amazing
ReplyDeletedid you add cheerys to the cake mix
DeleteYes, recipe says cut 24 cherries into 4ths and add to cake mix. :)
DeleteIf 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
ReplyDeleteFor 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?
ReplyDeleteActually, a stick of butter is 8 oz which is 1 cup. So you do need two sticks of butter.
DeleteNo, a stick of butter is 1/2 cup
DeleteSo 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
DeleteNo, 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.
DeleteTried and loved
ReplyDeleteI 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 9x13 pan. My cake turned out so good.
ReplyDeleteCan You Use Cool Whip For The Icing And Add The Cherry's ? 7 Cups Of Powdered Sugar Seems A Bit Much.
ReplyDeletewith 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
DeleteGreat idea with cool whip. Thanks.
DeleteThat's a good idea as long as you put it in fridge. I may try it as well.
ReplyDeleteI 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??
ReplyDeleteyou can use diet soda if you had the amount of eggs off the back of the mix
ReplyDeleteas 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.
ReplyDelete7 cups of powdered sugar is way to much for this recipe, I'd say
ReplyDelete4 cups would be plenty, also
1 sick of butter = 1/2 cup
I'm gonna make my buttercream frosting and put cherries in it
But I'll use unsalted butter
I'm gonna add a cup of cherry Dr pepper cause that sounds like it will be real thin so we will see
can you sub fresh cherries for the maraschino? will it still have a nice sweet flavor? thanks!
ReplyDeleteHas anyone made the frosting with cream cheese instead of butter?
ReplyDeletewhat if you just like the cherry flavor but not the cherry can you leave out the cut up cherries in the cake and it still be as good
ReplyDeleteI do not like to cook but needed a quick cake for an event. I did not add the cherries to the mix and it did come out a little dry. I also did not make my own frosting. I added the juice from a jar of maraschino cherries with a can of white buttercream frosting. It ended up being a hit with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
ReplyDeleteWe are happy to hear it was enjoyed!
DeleteHas anyone made this as a two layer cake? I love the looks of two layers. Wondering if it is too moist to make in layers..Anyone?
ReplyDeleteI’m currently trying that. I’ll keep you updated.
DeleteEverything seemed good but it did turn out super watery. Is it because the soda was a bit cold? Or what could have caused it?
ReplyDeleteHow does the cake raise without the ingredients the box calls for and is it two cups of butter
ReplyDeleteThe ingredients used to rise the cake are already in the dry mix.
DeleteIt rose perfectly...but the cake was super crumbly and did not hold together. I am convinced that leaving out the eggs and oil caused the cake to fail to bind together. Next time I am going to follow the box instructions but just substitute the Cherry Dr. Pepper for the water called for.
DeleteAnd I cut the frosting recipe in half and had just the right amount. I want more cake than frosting not the other way around. And I will reduce the amount of powdered sugar some so the frosting is less sweet.
I forgot to pick up powdered sugar but had buttercream icing on hand. I Mixed the buttercream with cherry juice- it was a hit!!!
ReplyDeleteI made this tonight but it didn't cook all the way. I even cooked it another 20 minutes. Any suggestions.
ReplyDeleteMy fiancé really wants me to make this for him as it has his 3 favorite things: Dr Pepper, cherries, & chocolate. I was wondering if it’s possible to make it with a scratch recipe instead of a mix, and, if so, how would I do it?
ReplyDeleteThis was wonderful! Made it for my son's birthday. The directions are clear and easy to follow if you can read. Thank you so much for sharing, and the video is great too!
ReplyDeleteI made it for a church fundraiser on Saturday; it was good, but fell apart when we cut it.
ReplyDeleteWould it be ok to make and frost for the next day? Or would it be better to frost the day I need it? Thanks
ReplyDeleteMy husband requested I make this for his birthday and so it is baking as we speak. I can't wait for the final results. I'll post later to let you know how it went.
ReplyDeleteIs it absolutely required for the soda to be room temp?
ReplyDeleteI only have refrigerated cans on hand.
Umm....take one can out of the refrigerator one hour before you make the cake and set it on a counter....problem solved
DeleteHave it saved as a PDF file. Will be making this in the near future.
ReplyDeleteI am the daughter of an executive chef and have eaten many wedding cakes and other sweets. This is easy, inexpensive and so yummy. Follow the instructions to a t and you can’t go wrong. I’m not a baker and it turned out perfect. I baked in a Pyrex bowl and put pieces together to make a ball and decorated with red icing Happy Birthday as Dr. Pepper logo. The cake was heavy and moist. The icing delicious. This is one of the best cakes I’ve ever had and so cheap to make if your on a budget. So glad I found it. It will be a hit whatever the occasion. ❤️ it! Thank you!!
ReplyDelete