Dark Chocolate Cherry Dr. Pepper Rum Cake

It’s Alex's birthday, and I wanted to make him a specialty birthday cake. I decided to make a *takes deep breath for long sentence*…dark chocolate cherry dr. pepper rum cake.  Mmmm!

I have made this cake once before, but this time I pretty much winged it. I got a box (yes, I don’t make eeeeeverything from scratch) of dark chocolate cake, and a box of INSTANT chocolate pudding. In my kitchen aid, I mixed both boxes, four eggs, about a cup of Bacardi torched cherry rum, a half a cup of dr. pepper, a quarter cup of oil, and a table spoon of cocoa powder. I mixed this until it was batter, but it still looked pretty thick. I took a jar of maraschino cherries, and poured about half of the cherry juice into the cake batter. I mixed until the batter looked about the right consistency, and then I added some whole cherries.

I greased the bundt pan and placed some extra cherries at the bottom (so they would be on top when I flip it out). I poured the cake mix over the cherries and into the bundt pan. I baked it in the oven at 350F for about an hour.

While it was baking, I tried to make a simple syrup reduction, but it never got very syrupy (probably because I used cherry rum instead of water). The “syrup” consisted of about a half cup of cherry rum, the rest of the cherry juice, and a few table spoons of sugar. Like I said, this never really thickened up, which is totally fine.

I let the bundt cake cook for ten minutes before I even attempted to remove it from the pan. Once cooled, I took a rubber spatula to loosen the sides (but careful to keep its shape intact). I lined a cookie sheet with foil, and placed it ON TOP of the bundt pan. Then, very carefully, I flipped the bundt pan over onto the cookie sheet, releasing the cake from the mold. It was beautiful!

Lastly, I used a plastic knife to poke a few slits in the top of the cake, and I poured the simple syrup all over the cake. The cake soaked it all up like a sponge! The bottom cherries are now on top and bright beautiful red! The cake is dark , chocolaty and moist! All in all, I would say the dark chocolate cherry dr. pepper rum cake was a great success!!