Black Forest Cake

If you think you don't have time to make a dessert for the holidays, think again! This Black Forest Cake is so decadent, and extremely simple to pull together. Baking is a thoughtful and delicious way to show others how much they mean to you. They don't have to know this warm and gooey cake was this easy...the best part? I made this in my crock pot, which frees up my oven for other things.

Simple ingredients: Chocolate Cake Mix, Cherry Pie Filling, Butter and if you like nuts you can add that too.

Lucky Leaf provided me with an assortment of their Premium Fruit fillings to sample for myself. I was able to make whatever I wanted with their products, and this entire post is my own opinion - I received no compensation for my written review. The beautiful 43 page Recipe Book they sent along with the products is filled with inspirational photos and easy to follow recipes. Next on my list is the Cherry-Chocolate Macaroon Pie. OMG, it's a recipe that only takes 30 minutes to prep, 22 minutes to bake and serves 8. Can you tell I have a thing for cherry's and chocolate? Read on to find out how you can receive some Lucky Leaf this holiday season.

Crock Pot cooking isn't a new concept, but it has been a recent trend that I've seen blogged about more this year. As life gets busier, and with the holidays upon us I think folks are drawn to quick and easy recipes.

I was so impressed with the quality of the Lucky Leaf Cherry Pie filling. This wasn't a can of cherry "pieces," this was a can full of whole plump cherries! Sure, you could make homemade cherry pie filling but have you ever pitted cherries? It's a completely tedious and messy task! To make this Black Forest Cake, begin by dumping two cans of Premium Cherry Pie Filling into your crock pot.

Top with a package of chocolate cake mix. This doesn't have to be pretty, just dump evenly over the top and do not mix it together.

Take one stick of butter and cut it up on top. Some recipes for dump cake have you "cut in" the butter by working it into the dry mix. I didn't even mess with that. I cut the butter into small pieces and put them on top.

If you want, you can add nuts. I had 1/3 C walnuts in the pantry left over from another recipe so I tossed those on top.

Believe it or not, that's it. I turned my crock pot on low and left it to cook for 3 hours.

After one hour, this is what my Black Forest Cake looks like.
 

This is what the cake looks like after the second hour.

You can really start to smell the chocolate scents wafting from the crock pot.

After three hours, the cake should look like this - the bottom cherry layer will be gooey, but the top cake layer will be cooked through. There isn't a pretty way to serve, just provide a large spoon for folks to scoop out the cake. Serve with whipped topping or even better...ice cream.

I served this at a party where one person commented that this tasted like a warm chocolate covered cherry. This Black Forest cake is definitely decadent! I hope this inspires you to spread some holiday cheer and goodies this season. To help you get started, I'm conducting a Lucky Leaf giveaway >>> click through to enter the contest.