Chocolate Maraschino Layer Cake

It may be based on a miniature, but this cake is certainly not small on flavor: with chocolate and cherry in multiple forms and a hint of booze, it’s like a cherry cordial in cake form.

I can’t imagine it gets much better than two thick layers of moist, dark chocolate cake with a chocolate cherry buttercream filling and rustic swirls of cheerful pink buttercream, all topped with ruby red maraschino cherries.

Like many young girls, I had a dollhouse, a log cabin-inspired house that I built from a kit with my dad.

But, unlike most other girls, my dollhouse didn’t have any actual dolls in it.

Instead, I spent my time making miniature food with which to fill it.

I’d almost forgotten about my slightly unusual childhood hobby until recently, when my mom, while cleaning out their attic, stumbled across a tupperware filled with some of my miniature food (how she managed to keep it all together and unbroken I’ll never know). She promptly popped it in the mail, figuring I’d want to have this tiny momento from my childhood.

When it finally arrived, I started picking through the pint-sized foodstuffs I’d created out of modeling clay. From shish kabobs on straight pins to bacon and eggs to an entire baked ham (we didn’t even eat ham, where did that come from?!) younger me had made it all.

One thing was obvious: I certainly liked cake, as there were 5 of them in total, including one rectangular chocolate layer cake with pastel pink frosting and 3 little red cherries on top. Unlike the cake with the unnatural and slightly unappetizing sky blue frosting, this pink one looked like it could actually be a real cake.

So, I did what seemed only logical: I made it into a real cake. An actual, full-sized and fully-edible cake that matched the shape and colors of the miniature version I’d made decades ago.

And that there is probably the weirdest recipe inspiration story you’ve ever heard.

Needless to say, the actual cake tastes quite a bit better than the clay version (lol). I knew I at least needed two stout layers of dark chocolate cake with a thick layer of slightly lighter chocolate filling in between, and a light pink frosting covering the whole thing. And cherries on top (obviously). So chocolate and cherry seemed the obvious choice.

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