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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.

I baked up two thick layers of moist, dark chocolate cake and stacked in a rectangle with the chocolate buttercream in between. Despite appearances, I didn’t actually bake it in a loaf pan, rather I used an 8-by-8 square pan and then cut the cake in half and stacked the layers. The square pan bakes quicker and more evenly, and requires less trimming than a loaf cake would, so ultimately it’s easier to assemble.

The cake is then filled and frosted with a luscious Swiss meringue buttercream, made using some of the leftover maraschino syrup, along with some brandy and almond extract, so it really does taste like maraschino cherries!

Half the frosting is mixed with melted dark chocolate for the filling, and the other half is colored a pastel pink for the outside.

I initially tried a whipped ganache for the filling, which has a lovely, rich chocolate flavor; however I find that it sets up too firmly for my liking (it is really only good while it’s still soft, and what good is a cake that needs to be consumed in its entirety right away?) I toyed with a chocolate cremeaux as well, but, on the opposite end of the spectrum, it simply didn’t firm up enough to support the weight of the upper layer.

So, Swiss meringue buttercream it is! A decision that ultimately made this recipe about 33% easier overall, since the same batch of buttercream is used as both the filling and the frosting (split and mixed with either chocolate or food coloring), rather than two entirely different recipes.

Swiss meringue buttercream differs from its American counterpart in that it is creamier, butterier, and much less sweet. It is, however, a skill that might take a bit of practice and perseverance. It’s not hard, necessarily, but it can be terrifying as you watch your perfect, fluffy meringue turn to melted ice cream soup and then to cottage cheese and finally to drywall mud before finally coming together into a lusciously creamy buttercream (phew).

Anxiety aside, I much prefer this frosting to the powdered sugar stuff, which can be so sweet that it hurts your teeth. Meringue buttercreams are still sweet by nature, but aren’t cloyingly like American buttercream.

I actually used some of the leftover maraschino syrup in the meringue, giving it that candy-like cherry flavor, enhanced by the addition of almond extract and some brandy in the final frosting. The color doesn’t seem to carry over quite like the flavor, however; the pink maraschino syrup turns the meringue a pale lilac gray when cooked with the egg whites and sugar: an odd color that made the frosting take on the appearance of grout or drywall mud during the mixing process (strange, but that’s seriously what it looked like). Nothing a little food coloring can’t fix, though!

After the base buttercream is finished, you’ll then separate it into two bowls: one gets the pink food coloring, and the other gets some melted dark chocolate.

My pink buttercream turned out a bit darker than the inspiration cake (buttercream tends to darken as it ‘cures’ which I didn’t account for), but otherwise I think I nailed it.

What do you think?

Maybe I need to attempt the blue one next?