Cheery Cherry Cake

This cute, cherry-covered cake is not hard to make, and it only uses three icing tips. 

What You Need
For the Cake:
1 box white cake mix
1 can cherry pie filling
1/8 tsp. almond extract

To Decorate:
3-4 cups buttercream icing
Red & Green icing colors
3 decorating bags
Tips #12, 3 & 352
Plastic wrap for icing bag bullets
To bake the cake, simply combine the egg, pie filling and cake mix, and bake. It is the same as the chocolate-covered cherry cake recipe, but substitute white cake mix for the chocolate. It makes a really cute pink cake inside and out. (And yes, if I were smart I'd have taken a picture of it. But I was not.) This cake can get a little extra moist, so if it's too gooey for you, leave out the egg.

Make a double-batch (5-6 cups) of decorator's buttercream icing, just to be sure you have enough.
Color about 1 cup of the icing a dark red for the cherries. (Click the link to see my note about red food coloring.)
Color about 1/2-3/4 cups green for the stems and leaves.
Leave about 1/4-1/2 cup white for the accent mark.
Color the remaining icing pale pink to color (and fill, if desired) the cake. *Note: To get the very pale pink color, I substituted 1 Tbsp. of the syrup from a jar of marachino cherries for the last Tbsp. of milk. You can also just color it pink with red or pink coloring.

Cover the cake with the pale pink buttercream. (Click the link to see my complete tutorial on how to ice a cake.)

To make the cherries:
Use Tip #12 and red icing. Hold the bag straight up from the surface of the cake. Think about drawing a small, compact "u" shape for each cherry. Make the cherries in sets of 2.
If you want, you can also use a tip #3, 5, or 7 to make smaller cherries the same way. (I used a tip #5.)
*Note: For the sides, you will hold the bag straight out from the sides, not straight up.

Next you'll add the accent mark in white. Using tip #3, make a small, curved line on the top of one of the cherries in each set.

To add the stems, hold your bag at an angle, and keep the back of the bag pointing towards you. Start from the cherry and pull the bag towards you to make the stem. Add a small dot where the two stems meet.

To help "clean it up" a little, after the icing has set, use your finger to tap down any of the little points where you pulled the bag away from the cherries.

Enjoy!

Click the Links Below to See:
Chocolate-Covered Cherry Cake
Cherry Sugar Cookies
Basic Cake Decorating Techniques and Ideas


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