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
- 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
- always flour and grease the pan you’re using for the best results
- do not overbeat this batter
- fold in the fruit last (make sure it’s blotted dry)
- add any kind of nuts
- the cake tastes great with just whipped cream
- instead of frosting dust with powdered sugar
- make muffins instead of a cake
- make two cakes and freeze one for later up to 6 months wrapped
- try and different fruit
- tint with food coloring if desired for deeper color
- decorate frosted cakes with some fruit
- no heart pan no problem! First bake two cakes, one round, and one square. Then cut the round baked cake in half. Then turning the square cake so it looks like a diamond shape with the point at the top. Place the two cut halves on each side of the point.
Pans to Use:
- Sheet cake: 13 x 9 around 30 minutes
- Bundt pan: 9 -inch around 55 to 60 minutes
- Round pans: 9-inch around 25 to 20 minutes
- Note: use the toothpick method (place in the cake when it comes out clean the cake is cooked)
Fruit substitutions:
- red raspberries
- chopped strawberries
- blackberries
- peaches chopped fresh or canned drained
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Take the Easy Way Out?
If you don’t want to bake the cake from scratch use a white cake to the directions add the cherries to the batter before baking and substitute the juice for part of the water
Again you can easily bake a round cake and a square cake then make a heart-shaped cake from those two pans.
This maraschino cherry cake is a vintage recipe from my mom’s collection and is super delicious and moist, we hope you try it!
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