Cherry Danish Cake - Cake Odyssey Bonus

The recipe I'm sharing with you today is not, I repeat, not, the Cake Odyssey contribution for the month of April.  Call it a bonus.  I've been making this stuff for ages.  And I do mean ages.  I can't even recall exactly when this recipe came into my life.  I can say, however, that I was still a kid living at home with my parents.  And many of you know how loooong it's been since then! 

I recall a huge family get-together and I believe a cousin-in-law two or three times removed brought this to the potluck dessert table and you know how it goes.  You swoon over it, beg for the recipe, if you're fortunate enough, they oblige and hand over the recipe and you make it over and over again, because it's just so yummy and so darn easy to make.  The end.

Cherry Danish Cake

Here's What You Need:

1 1/2 cups sugar

1/2 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup shortening

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon almond extract

4 eggs

3 cups flour

1 can cherry pie filling

glaze for topping (optional)

Here's What You Do:

Lightly grease a jelly roll pan.  Blend the following ingredients with a mixer:  sugar, butter, shortening, baking powder, vanilla, almond extract and eggs.  If you aren't in the habit of keeping almond extract around, just replace it with vanilla.  If a little vanilla is good, more is better!  Blend on low, then turn up the mixer to high for 3 minutes.

Add the flour and blend by hand.  Spread 2/3 of the batter in the jelly roll pan.  Spread the pie filling over the batter and then, drop the remaining batter by spoonfuls onto the pie filling.

Bake for 35-40 minutes in a 350 degree oven.  Watch that it doesn't brown too much!  While the cake is still slightly warm, drizzle with a glaze made of 1 cup powdered sugar and 1-2 Tablespoons of milk.  The number of servings you get all depends upon how big you slice the pieces.  You can swap out pie filling flavors too, however, I would caution against using apple pie filling.  The weight of the apple slices might be too much for this delicate cake.  This makes a fun dessert to serve around Valentine's Day.  Or you could do one with cherry and one with blueberry pie filling and serve for the Fourth of July!