Chocolate Fudge Cherry Cake for the 17th time!

OK it's really the 11th time, but my daughter turned 17 and again she wanted her favorite cake.  My plan this year was to do something a little different like make it into an ice cream cake.  She decided though that she wanted to spend time on the lake with her friends for her birthday.  Sounded like fun to me, but ice cream would not do well at the lake.  I didn't know if any of them were going to come back to the house, so it was time for plan B.

Left on a kayak.

Came back on a paddle board.

I got to thinking that cupcakes would be a great plan.  I'd never made cupcakes out of this recipe and was a little afraid that it might be too soft of a recipe for cupcake wrappers.  I hate it when you peel the wrapper off a cupcake and half of the cupcake sticks to the wrapper.  You then feel the need to scrap the cake off the wrapper with your teeth eating some of the wrapper in the process.  I wasn't sure if this wasn't going to turn into one of those times, BUT one doesn't know if they don't try.

The recipe made 21 cupcakes.  Now what to do with the frosting.  I made the frosting as the recipe said.  The cupcakes did cool off by the time I got the frosting done.  This turned out to be a good thing.  I decided to dip the top of the cupcakes into the hot frosting.  Sort of a dip, pick up and twirl keeping the frosting on the cake and not on the wrapper.  It worked out great.  I let the cupcakes sit and the frosting cooled to a really nice semi hard shell.  Perfect for placing plastic wrap over on a tray and taking to the lake.  Turned out they peeled out of their wrapper perfectly.  The frosting layer was the perfect amount of frosting according to my daughter.  We may have found a great new way to serve her favorite birthday treat.

All the wrappers ended up in front of Diana and they started saying "Diana save some cupcakes for the rest of us."

I took 18 cupcakes to the lake for 7 teens. I sent an easy picnic lunch with them for their trip, but knew they'd be hungry when they returned. Thirsty and starving is what they said when they returned. I had an ice chest with cold drinks and 18 cupcakes that they promptly devoured.

Chocolate Fudge Cherry Cake
1 box Devil's Food Cake Mix
1 can cherry pie filling
2 eggs
1 teaspoon almond flavoring (optional) (It's not really optional you must use it.)

Frosting:
1 cup granulated sugar
5 tablespoons butter
1/3 cup milk
6 oz package of semisweet chocolate chips

Mix cake mix, cherry pie filling, eggs, and flavoring by hand. Pour batter into greased and floured 13x9x2-inch pan and bake at 350° about 30 minutes, or until a wooden pick or cake tester inserted in center comes out clean. (Bundt shaped pan works great just takes a little longer to bake.)
For frosting, place sugar, butter, and milk in a saucepan. Bring to a boil stirring constantly. Boil for one minute. Remove from the heat and stir in chocolate chips until smooth. Pour over warm cake.

Lynne's Note:  Cupcakes take 1/2 the time to bake.  While they are cooling prepare frosting.  Holding bottom of cupcake dip just the cake part of cupcake in frosting.  Pull up, twist and do a 1/2 twirl so string of frosting breaks and frosting stays only on top of cupcake.  Let all cupcakes sit not touching one another.  Frosting will harden to a beautiful chocolate shell that does not stick to plastic wrap.

PS.  BTW they all came back to the house.  Cell phone out daughter calling her dad, "Could you pretty please order 3 pizzas."