Cherry Cola Dump Cake Recipe

If you are looking for an easy dessert that doesn't skimp on flavor, you'd be hard-pressed to find one much easier than a dump cake. They are nearly effortless, and this cherry cola dump cake from recipe developer Jessica Morone is no exception but still manages to keep things interesting. This four-ingredient recipe is where convenience meets irresistible flavor — it combines the nostalgic taste of fizzy cola with the rich sweetness of chocolate and the tartness of cherries all in one easy dessert.

Many dump cake recipes use butter as the main liquid component, but this recipe uses cola instead. "Adding soda to a dump cake adds moisture to the cake, helps the cake rise, and also gives the cake its signature cola flavor," Morone tells us. This leads to a soft, pillowy chocolate cake that is packed with flavor and goes perfectly with the brightness of the cherry filling. While perfect as it is, Morone notes that finishing off with "some vanilla ice cream on top is great for the extra indulgence that you get from the creaminess of the ice cream contrasting with the gooey chocolate cake." Perfect for both busy weeknights and special occasions, this recipe promises to satisfy every sweet craving with minimal effort required.  

You only need four ingredients for this dump cake:  Devil's food cake mix, cherry pie filling, cola, and chocolate chips. "Any kind of chocolate cake mix will work in this recipe, I just love the richness of Devil's food cake," Morone says. She also notes that she used semi-sweet chocolate chips but you can swap in milk chocolate chips or dark chocolate chips if you prefer those, and any brand of cola is fine in this recipe.

Preheat the oven to 350 F.

Dump the cherry pie filling into the bottom of a 13x9-inch baking pan and spread evenly.

In a large bowl mix together the cake mix and chocolate chips.

Add in the cola and mix until just combined

Dump the cake mix over the cherry pie filling. Spread evenly over the filling.

Bake in the preheated oven 30-35 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean and the cherry filling is bubbly.

Cool for about 15 minutes, then cut and serve.

If you've stumbled across other dump cakes out there, then you likely notice that they consistently say one specific thing: Do not mix. It's typically viewed as the one rule of dump cakes that you're not supposed to break ... but we're breaking it. The no-mix rule stems from the idea that you dump the filling in a pan, then you dump dry cake mix on top, and then you put butter or liquid on top of that, making them require almost no effort. This recipe switches things up by calling for a small amount of mixing when you combine the cake mix, chocolate chips, and cola in a bowl, and it's for good reason. 

"I tried this recipe the standard way, just dumping everything in a pan, and like with most dump cakes you end up with some sections not getting any moisture and just being dry and clumpy," Morone explains, adding, "I think we can do better than that." By mixing the cake mix briefly in this recipe, just until combined with the liquid, you end up getting a rich, fluffy chocolate cake which still requires almost no effort. So for this cake, it turns out that maybe rules are meant to be broken after all.

Cherry pie filling is a bit different from canned cherries, though when you're in a rush at the grocery store, they look remarkably similar. Cherry pie filling is sweetened and thickened, and is meant to be used in desserts like pies, tarts and cakes. Canned cherries are usually just whole or pitted cherries in either juice or syrup — they are more like using fresh cherries as opposed to a compote. 

In this recipe, you can swap out the cherry pie filling for canned cherries, but Morone advises that you should drain the liquid from one of the cans of cherries and then combine them with the other can of cherries, otherwise there will be too much thin liquid at the bottom of this cake. You could also consider combining one can of drained cherries with a can of cherry pie filling, this way you could use a combination of sweetened cherry pie filling and a different kind of cherry, such as sour cherries for a more complex flavor. If you want to be more ambitious you could consider making homemade cherry pie filling and skip the canned stuff altogether.