Happy Birthday, George!

As I suspected, I don't have a finished house block to show you tonight, so we'll celebrate George Washington's birthday instead--it's much tastier anyway.

Did you know that February 22nd is George's birthday?  I know--we celebrated it last Monday, but the 22nd is the REAL day; besides that, I see no reason why we shouldn't celebrate for a week at least.  After all, he WAS the first president.  And what better way is there to celebrate a birthday than by having cake?

Of course you know the story about George and the cherry tree, so it will not come as a surprise that George's cake has cherries in it.  After all, once the tree came down, somebody had to eat those cherries!

I baked my cake in a glass pan, so I reduced the heat by 25 degrees, but you can use a metal pan instead.  With a metal pan, preheat the oven to 350 degrees (325 for glass) and grease and flour a 9" x 13" pan (about 2" deep).

In a bowl, combine a commercial chocolate cake mix, three eggs, and a can of cherry pie filling--just use a large spoon to stir the ingredients together until the batter is evenly moist.  Pour the batter into the prepared pan and spread it to the edges; bake the cake for 35 to 40 minutes.

Can you see the cherry peeking out of the cut side?

As I was preparing the cake, it occurred to me that it's probably a lot lower in fat than if it had been prepared according to the directions on the cake mix box, because the pie filling takes the place of the vegetable oil (and water).  I would imagine if you don't care for cherries, apple pie filling would work too, but whatever you do, make sure you use pie filling and not just canned fruit--it would probably be too runny and not sweet enough.

The recipe I have recommends topping the cake with whipped cream, but since I didn't have any, I added a scoop of vanilla ice cream to mine; but it's also nice just eaten plain as a snack cake.  Yum!

So, chocolate cherry cake for George's birthday--it's downright patriotic!