This maraschino cherry cake that’s all made from scratch is a delicious moist dessert cake and we often bake this in a heart-shaped pan on Valentine’s Day for that special someone.
The recipe is from the 1940s that mom made and since then I have made this in her memory since 1999 when she passed away.
The cake is a white light cake made with just egg whites, cake flour (which I have included DIY recipe for cake flour below) eggs, cherry juice, and maraschino jarred cherries.
Mom’s homemade from scratch recipe for this Maraschino Cherry Cake recipe is not only easy to make but it is absolutely as delcious as it looks.
Anyone you make this for will not only be impressed with this pretty cherry cake but also fall with the fanstic creamy cherry topped icing!
Mom would also added pecans to her recipe below, however, our family has excluded them due to the many food allergies, so I leave them out.
We have two frosting recipes below one is a vintage buttercream cherry frosting and the other is a 7 minutes style frosting the cake will make two 9-inch cakes, we usually make two and freeze one for another time.
For the complete recipe scroll all the way down to the bottom where you will find a printable recipe card on this page and hit print.
Step-by-Step Maraschino Cherry Heart Cake
Prepare by greasing and flouring the pan of choice
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
Add the cake batter ingredients and use an electric mixer to combine
Fold in the cherries
Pour into the prepared pan
Baking time will vary by the pans used see below recipe card for instructions
Shopping List (complete recipe in the printable card at the bottom of this post)
Cake Batter:
sifted cake flour (see homemade cake flour photo in the post)
sugar
baking powder
salt
vegetable shortening
whole milk ( I prefer to use evaporated or buttermilk)
maraschino cherry juice
vanilla
almond extract
egg whites
chopped maraschino cherries around 15 to 18 blotted dry with paper towels
Optional:1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts.
