Chocolate Chip Cherry Cake Pudding

For Valentine's Day last month, David requested a dessert featuring cherries, which worked out perfectly, as I was dying to try The Pioneer Woman's Cherry Cake Pudding. I followed her recipe almost exactly, except for the part where she added chopped pecans, I added chocolate chips. Because I'm evil. And because, well, what would a Valentine's Day dessert be without chocolate???

As David described it, this isn't so much a cake as it is a vessel for delivering the cherries and chocolate chips. It was divine with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, and can be reheated in the microwave for about a minute if you manage to have leftovers.

A note on the cherries: there are quite a few canned cherry options in the grocery store, and at least where I shop, the choices are scattered throughout the store. What you want here is canned cherries is syrup (I found them in the canned fruit & veggie aisle) not cherry pie filling (which is in the baking aisle) or canned cherries in water (which my store had both in the baking and canned fruit aisles). I was able to find the Oregon brand "pitted dark sweet Bing cherries in heavy syrup" that Ree used, so I went with that. (Phew, who knew cherries could be so complicated!).

Recipe adapted from The Pioneer Woman

Ingredients:

For the cake:

• 1 cup Sugar
• 2 Tablespoons Butter, Softened
• 1 whole Egg
• 1 cup All-purpose Flour
• 1 teaspoon Baking Powder
• ⅛ teaspoons Salt
• ½ cups Whole Milk
• 1 can (15 Ounces) Cherries In Syrup (NOT Cherry Pie Filling) Drained, Juice Reserved
• ½ cups Semi-sweet Chocolate Chips

For the sauce:

• 1 cup Juice From Cherries (add Water To Make 1 Cup If Necessary)
• 1 cup Sugar
• 1 Tablespoon All-purpose Flour
• 1 Tablespoon Butter
• ½ teaspoons Vanilla Extract

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Generously butter a square 9 x 9-inch baking dish.

Cream sugar and butter. Add egg and mix well. Sift flour, baking powder, and salt then add to mixing bowl alternatively with milk. Add cherries and chocolate chips and mix gently. Pour batter into buttered pan and smooth out the surface. Bake for 40 minutes, or until golden brown on the surface and no longer jiggly.

While cake is baking, make the sauce by combining cherry juice, sugar, and flour in a small saucepan. Boil for 8 to 10 minutes, or until thick. Turn off heat and stir in 1 tablespoon butter and vanilla extract.

Drizzle 1/3 of the sauce on the cake as soon as you remove it from the oven. Spread to distribute over the surface and wait ten minutes before serving so the sauce will seep into the top of the cake a bit.

Spoon out pieces of the warm cake, drizzle with more cherry sauce and serve with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.