What is better than a Honey Bun Cake? A CHERRY Honey Bun Cake! Yellow cake mix laced with cinnamon, brown sugar and cherry pie filling, drizzled with almond glaze.
Our house is like grand central station. While some might not like the constant rotation of friendly faces, we love it.
This means I also need to be prepared by having a few staples to make sweet treats on hand. One of those staples is yellow cake mix.
Of course you can follow the directions and make a delightful cake, but you can also use cake mix to make cookies, dessert dip, pancakes, swirled brownies and more, like my Cherry Honey Bun Cake!
And while the original is a tender, rich, yellow crumb with a ribbon of cinnamon and brown sugar deliciousness, my adaptation brings a new element: cherries! Why? My daughter loves cherries!
One can of cherry pie filling and vanilla extract swapped with almond extract takes your honey bun cake to the next level.
Cherry Honey Bun Cake can be served for breakfast, brunch, tea time, with coffee, or as dessert, making it the most versatile recipe with cake mix ever! Your family (and your impromptu guests) and will rave and ask you to make it every time they visit.
Add a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream, fresh whipped cream or even a dusting of powdered sugar for an extra special slice of Cherry Honey Bun Cake!
Cherry Honey Bun Cake Ingredients
The cherry honey bun cake ingredients are simple, and you might have most of them on hand already. The rest you can easily find at the grocery store.
- Cake mix – A box of cake mix is what makes this great cake so easy. I like to use a yellow box mix, but you could also use a white cake mix if you’d like to. Pillsbury or Betty Crocker brands work great.
- Vegetable oil – When baking, it’s always best to use a neutral oil. Vegetable oil is my particular favorite to use for dump cakes like this.
- Eggs – any time a recipe calls for eggs, always assume it is calling for large eggs. Room temperature eggs are best to bake with.
- Sour cream – I love a moist cake, and sour cream is one way to help accomplish that. It also gives a tart flavor to this honey bun cake recipe too.
- Brown sugar – I prefer the flavor of light brown sugar, but if all you have is dark brown that will be perfectly fine.
- Cinnamon – The cinnamon mixture is what takes this delicious honey bun cake over the top. It’s like a gooey cinnamon roll in cake form.
- Cherry pie filling – Of course a homemade filling is always delicious, but for the sake of simplicity, the canned version works just fine.
- Powdered sugar – This will serve as the base for
- Milk – This is used to thin out the glaze. A thick glaze poured over a hot cake just can’t be beat. I like to use whole milk, but any type of milk will do.
- Almond extract – I like the flavor combination of almond and cherry, but you can also use vanilla extract if you’d like to make a sweet vanilla glaze instead if you’d like.
How to Make Cherry Honey Bun Cake
- Prepare oven and pan. Preheat oven and coat a 9×13 baking dish with cooking spray. Set aside.
- Make cinnamon mixture. Mix together the brown sugar and ground cinnamon in a separate bowl, set aside.
- Combine cake mix. In a large mixing bowl, combine cake mix with vegetable oil, eggs and sour cream. Stir until just combined. Do not over mix.
- Spread into pan. Spread half of the mixture into prepared 9×13 baking dish.
- Sprinkle cinnamon mixture and pie filling. Sprinkle brown sugar mixture over batter. Top with cherry pie filling, spreading all the way to the edges.
- Top with remaining batter. Spread remaining batter over cherry pie filling.
- Swirl. Using a toothpick or butter knife, swirl around to mix it all in good.
- Bake. Top might start to brown, loosely over with aluminum foil.
- Making glaze. Meanwhile, whisk together powdered sugar, almond extract and milk.
- Add glaze to cake. Pour icing over cake as soon as it comes out of the oven.
- Allow to cool. Set aside until icing starts to set. You can refrigerate to speed up the process.
Storage and Freezing
Storage: This cake will stay good for four to five days. Make sure to put in an airtight container in the refrigerator for best results.
Freezing: I do not recommend freezing this cake. Because of the pie filling, it will be quite soggy when thawed.
More Recipes Using Boxed Cake Mix
Cherry Honey Bun Cake Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 box Yellow Cake Mix
- 3/4 cup vegetable oil
- 4 eggs
- 8 ounces sour cream
- 1 cup light brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
- 21 ounces cherry pie filling
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- 4 tablespoons whole milk
- 1 tablespoon almond extract
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°. Coat a 9×13 baking dish with cooking spray. Set aside.
- Mix together the brown sugar and ground cinnamon in a separate bowl, set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, combine the cake mix with vegetable oil, eggs and sour cream. Stir until just combined. Do not over mix.
- Spread half of the mixture into prepared 9×13 baking dish.
- Evenly sprinkle brown sugar mixture over batter. Top with cherry pie filling, spreading all the way to the edges.
- Spread the remaining batter over the cherry pie filling.
- Using a toothpick or butter knife, swirl around to mix.
- Bake for 45-50 minutes. The top might start to brown, loosely over with aluminum foil.
- Meanwhile, whisk together the powdered sugar, almond extract and milk.
- Pour the icing over the cake as soon as it comes out of the oven.
- If you’ve tried this recipe, please come back and leave us a comment!
I love this recipe!! Last week I made the cherry this week I’m trying it with strawberries!!
I LOVE QUICK recipes using a cake mix! Has anyone tried using a DIFFERENT flavor of pie filling?
I haven’t yet, but I made a peach pie yesterday and man, it would have tasted SO good! Blueberry too 🙂 Apples, really, you can use any filling you’d like.
And now I’m kicking myself for not eating dessert tonight! This looks amazing! Wow!
I LOVe super simple recipes like these! It looks so good and I really want to give it a try! I use box mixes to make my recipes quick sometimes and they always come out tasting like it’s from scratch! 🙂
Looks amazing, and so easy!
I just love recipes using a cake mix. I had alot of bad comments using a mix on my site but let me just say I think its creative, genius ideas to make anything semi homemade and this recipe sound fabulous!
While I love homemade, sometimes it just isn’t realistic and there is no shame is having a few boxes of cake mix around to help you out. Besides ,they have great taste, I don’t care what anyone says!
It looks really wonderful. So fruity and appealing. It’s calling out to me.