Cherry Coffee Cake

Cake mix cherry coffee cake with pie filling is a delicious breakfast or dessert we all love. We shared our popular Coffee Cake with Yellow Cake Mix recipe before but this one has fruit baked in it too!

Pie filling cherry cake mix coffee cake is a hit with my family. With a simple glaze on top it turns out moist and is easy easy to throw together as a dump cake is. Change it up with your favorite mix and fruit for endless combinations for a year round treat. (affiliate links present)

Cake Mix Cherry Coffee Cake Recipe

It all is kinda’ layered in this dish. Mix up the batter and pour in, then goes your fruit and on top you can make an easy crumb topping recipe too. That is what cake with your coffee should be all about right. Tender bites with a bit of ooey gooey from top to bottom. Period.

One of our favorite cake mix recipes, we used yellow but white works with your canned cherry filling. Not featured is another we have made with homemade apple pie filling and spice cake. A great choice during the Fall when you those are the flavors you crave during that time. I have even found pumpkin mix from time to time and that has been amazing!

This is a bit different from our cherry dump cake, but the same idea. This one requires a few more ingredients and will remind you more of the box of Entenmanns you had as a child. Served warm or cold right out of the fridge if you have leftovers it never lasts long in our house. You’ll need;

Ingredients

• 1 box or homemade yellow cake mix. You could use white, cherry, strawberry or any other cake mix flavor you like really.
• All purpose flour will make it more cakey
• 1 pkg active dry yeast 
• Eggs large added at room temperature
• Pie filling of your choice, canned was used
• Melted butter to moisten it up

Equipment Needed

You’ll want a 9×13″ baking pan with some non stick spray or you could line it with parchment paper so it slides out. Use one bowl and a spoon to integrate the ingredients to make the batter.

Variations and Substitutions

For a dairy free version go ahead and use a plant based vegan butter alternative. We used cherry filling but apple or mixed berry would be wonderful alternatives too.

Should you frost coffee cake?

Depends on whom you ask but you could add a super easy homemade glaze / frosting made with some powdered sugar (or confectioners sugar), corn syrup and some water. A touch of vanilla extract or almond extract in there is great too. We do the same thing over our maraschino cherry bread.

You could use a tub of frosting from the store and just warm in the microwave so you can pour it over the top of the whole thing. I do this and drizzle just a tad on our healthy coffee cake and it’s pretty amazing.

Ok so you could make your own filling if you wanted. I have done this when I had extra apples but not this type. When we did go fresh cherry picking they were the sour type so instead I made this tart cherry crisp recipe instead. Left whole cut in half it added a lot of flavor and texture to that dish. You could sweeten them up though.

You aren’t going to make the cake batter just as directed on the back of the box, there are a few tweaks. You’ll want a bit of yeast with some warm water so that can bubble up first. A few eggs and a bit more added flour will make it more dense as you would want it to be.

Melted butter will be used for the topping. If you sit it out to get to room temperature you can just melt in the microwave for 15 seconds at that point. Needing a dairy free coffee cake recipe?? My husband has the same needs. I have found a great lactose free plant based butter product lately that works great.

Love love integrating fruit. I have done this with our banana coffee cake too but that is homemade and takes longer to make. There’s a printable recipe listed below for you but will go over it quickly here. You’ll want to keep 1/4 cup of extra frosting on the side per serving or two so you can add more later.

How to Make Cherry Coffee Cake with Cherry Pie Filling

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
• Prepare a 9×13 baking dish with nonstick cooking spray.
• In a mixing bowl, beat together ingredients; 1 ½ cups cake mix, flour, yeast, and warm water until well blended.
• Add the eggs and mix just until combined.
• Transfer the batter to the prepared baking dish and spread evenly across the bottom.
• Drop pie filling a little at a time to create an even layer.
  • I just use a 1/4 or 1/2 cup measuring cup to scoop and dump into blobs all over 😉
• In a small bowl, stir together the remaining cake mix and melted butter.
• Create crumble mixture and sprinkle crumble over the top of the cherry pie filling.
• Bake the coffee cake for 35 minutes to 40 min.
• Allow the coffee cake to cool on a wire rack until warm.
• In a small bowl, stir together the ingredients for the glaze. Spoon the glaze over the top of the coffee cake. Slice into bars and serve warm.

If you do not want to use butter, or don’t have any, sour cream is a great alternative. Actually gives it even more moisture and won’t turn out sour with all the other ingredients. You could add 2 tbsp of added granulated sugar with that too though if you wanted to.

How to store leftovers

You don’t need or want to store this in the fridge, it will dry it out unnecessarily. Instead wait until is has completely cooled. Then move it over into an airtight container and keep on the countertop. It will stay well this way for up to 4 days. For best results you will want to warm when ready and extra glaze on top will moisten it up again too.

You can whip up some more with just some powdered sugar and enough water to loosen it up. Drizzle that on top, heat for 45 seconds and enjoy again until it disappears. 😉