This Cherry Cheese Danish Cake was inspired by delicious cherry cheese Danish pastries. Instead of a flaky pastry, this cake boasts a delicious layer of almond scented cake and a creamy layer of cheesecake. Lightly sweetened cherries and spoonfuls of reserved cake batter create a cobblestone like surface that is then drizzled with a simple icing.

I love a cherry inspired treat in February. Between Washington’s birthday and Valentine’s Day, I think cherries are quite fitting.

In the past, I’ve made Cherry Crumb Bars, Chocolate Chip Cherry Cheesecake, Sugar Cookie Cherry Cobbler and a unique Chocolate Cherry Soda Bread.

Oh, and if you’ve got fresh cherries on hand…I absolutely love this Fresh Sweet Cherry Sauce. It’s great on pancakes, ice cream, cake…

This year, I had cherry cheese Danish pastries on the brain. I guess because it’s been ages since I’ve had one. I decided to make something that tasted like that creamy, fruity pastry without actually making pastry dough.

Is this a breakfast cake or dessert cake?

Let’s talk about this cake. It’s a little different than your average coffee cake (breakfast cake.)

First, I didn’t want this to be a super sweet cake. I kept the sugar to a lower level wherever I used it. I really wanted the subtle flavors to shine through instead of being covered up by a mountain of sugar.

I think that makes it perfect for a breakfast cake. But honestly, we’ve been eating it as dessert. One, because I wasn’t done shooting it until well after breakfast.

Two, because I had already made Baked Apple Oatmeal for a couple days ofbreakfast and it just would have been carb city for all of us if we ate both.

So, it’s been served for dessert instead of breakfast, something that I believe all breakfast cakes can do.

Of course, for those of you who have a serious sweet tooth, I do give tips in the recipe notes for adding more sugar to the recipe.

As far as flavor, while I adore almond extract, I didn’t go too strongly here. I added just enough to complement the cherries. Desserts and cookies that have more pronounced almond flavor always remind me of Christmas. If I were making this during the holidays, I might punch up that flavor a little further.

But suffice to say, I’m quite happy with both the level of sweetness and almond flavor in this cake. And, I received no votes from my taste testers to add more sweetness or almond flavor.

Can I bake with frozen cherries?

Yes, yes and yes! I LOVE using frozen cherries for baking. I buy frozen organic cherries in a large 3lb bag from BJ’s warehouse store.

I love that they are whole, organic cherries, pitted and ready to go! And really, they’re just beautiful cherries!

In this recipe, I actually cook them first, but most frozen fruit can be added directly to many cake and muffin batters as long as you add them when they’re frozen.

How to Make Cherry Cheese Danish Cake

Cook the Cherries

We start by cooking the cherries so that they have a chance to cool while you work on other parts of the recipe.

I cook the cherries before I add them to the recipe because:

• Plain frozen cherries might give off too much liquid for a cheesecake batter. I didn’t want that since they would be baking right on top of the cheesecake layer.
• Cooking the cherries would allow them to be juicy, like they would be in pie filling, but without quite as much “sauce.” I wanted the cherries to be individual in the cake, not part of a whole pie filling layer, if you know what I mean.
• I wanted to add just a little extra sweetness to the cherries.

Basically, I made pie filling cherries, if that’s even a thing. The good news is…it’s easy to do.

I started by cooking the whole, frozen cherries with some sugar and lemon zest. I didn’t add any water. Remember, the goal is not to create alot of sauce.

As the cherries cook, they give off their own liquid. Take a few spoonfuls of that liquid and mix it in a small bowl with some cornstarch to form a slurry.

Add the slurry back to the pan and continue to cook and stir until the mixture is thickened and some of the liquid has evaporated.

The mixture should be thick enough so that when you scrape the bottom of the pan, the sauce won’t flow right back over it. When you reach this stage, you’re done.

Take care not to over cook the cherries. You don’t want to make jam. We want to maintain the integrity of the individual cherries.

Make the Cake Batter

The cake batter comes together pretty quickly. You know the drill. Cream butter and sugar, add eggs and flavorings, add yogurt, then gradually add dry ingredients.

I omitted any alternating of dry and wet ingredients to simplify the recipe. Since this recipe has a few components, I figured that they should each be as simple as possible.

The batter will be thick. Reserve half a cup for the topping and spread the rest in the pan.

Make the Cheesecake

You can do this right in the same bowl in which you mixed the cake batter. No need to wash the bowl first.

See? Keeping it simple. No one needs an extra bowl to wash, and the cheesecake layer will not suffer from being mixed in the same bowl.

It’s a simple cheesecake batter. It will mix up in a flash.

Spread the cheesecake batter evenly over the cake batter.

Adding the Final Layers

At this point, the cherries should be fully cooled. Using two spoons, scoop each cherry up individually and drop them evenly over the cheesecake batter.

If the dropping of individual cherries is too tedious to you, just tip the plate you cooled them on and slide them off quickly. Just do your best to cover all the areas of the cake. You don’t want anyone to get a slice without cherries in it.

Then, drop the reserved cake batter in small spoonfuls right over the cherries.

Time to bake!

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How to Check if Your Oven Temperature is Accurate

I’m not going to lie. This cake is a little more difficult to read its doneness than your typical cake.

My oven bakes at an accurate temperature of 350 degrees F. If your oven runs hot or cold, your results may vary.

If you want the best results from a recipe, I would strongly suggest investing in an oven thermometer {aff. link}. They’re inexpensive and you’ll easily be able to check if your oven is running at the proper temperature.

If your oven is running hot, say it’s 375 degrees on the thermometer when your oven says it’s 350, then you can lower your oven temperature to 325 or until your thermometer registers 350.

Then, you can make the proper adjustment for future recipes.

How can I tell when the cake is done?

The toothpick test doesn’t work so well with this cake because you’re likely to hit soft cheesecake or cherries, so it will rarely come out clean or with a few crumbs as we might normally expect.

So, here are some visual cues:

• The top of the cake is golden brown.
• The edges of the cake are pulling away from the pan and are also a deep golden brown.
• Your oven is truly baking at 350 and you’re within a window of 37-42 minutes. (Baking times can vary if you use a different sized pan that I did.)

What did I do? I double checked it with an instant read thermometer. <(This is not an affiliate link, it’s just a link to an updated version of the pen I own.)

Now this particular thermometer is not inexpensive, but definitely worth the investment. I use it all the time to check the temperature of cooked meats. I love it because it’s fast and accurate.

There are much less expensive brands on Amazon, but I can only vouch for the quality of the one I own.

While I use it most often to check meat temperatures, I also use it when if I’m unsure if a cake is finished baking. This was one of those days. I really did not want to over or under bake it.

The internal temperature of a cheesecake should be about 150 degrees. For cakes, it should be about 200-210 degrees, depending on the cake.

Because I had both in this recipe, I deferred to the cake temperature and considered it done at 200 degrees.

That temperature was achieved in 40 minutes of baking on the middle rack of my 350 degree oven.

Topping the Cake

To hit home the whole idea of a cherry Danish, there had to be a drizzle of icing on top.

So, once the cake is cool, just mix up a small bowl of a simple confectioner’s sugar icing. (This is the other place I decided to add a hit of almond and vanilla flavors.)

You can drizzle it from a spoon all over the top of the cake. I like to put the icing in a zip top bag, cut a bit of the corner off and then pipe/drizzle from there. It’s not necessary, but it does give you a bit more control, should you want it.

What’s the best temperature to serve Cherry Cheese Danish Cake?

Room temperature is lovely for the bottom cake layer. It’s also the best temperature to serve cheesecake.

The problem is that you have to refrigerate it for storage. And, actually, cheesecakes benefit from a long chill time as well. So, of course, that leaves you with cold cake.

You know how cakes get dense when cold? Well, this is already a rich, dense cake. When cold, the whole cake begins to feel like cheesecake, even though the base layer is cake.

And for some, there’s nothing wrong with that. My husband loves a cold cake. And we all love cheesecake, don’t we? So there’s no crime in eating a chilly slice straight from the fridge. Instant gratification.

For the room temperature fans, the only issue is this…trying to get your cold cake back to room temp every time you’re taking a piece out of the refrigerator seems a bit tedious to me.

So, my favorite way to eat this cake? I love it just ever so slightly warmed in the microwave. Basically, I’m just quickly bringing it back to room temp with just a few extra degrees of warmth.

My pieces were 1/2 the size of the pieces in the photograph and 10-15 seconds in the microwave was perfect.

When you warm it up, the cake layer softens up and becomes more of an independent layer from the cheesecake layer. You get more of a sense of the cakes’s texture and crumb.

I also believe that warming it up just a bit helps your palette access the flavors better. You simply taste more of the flavors in a richer way when the cake is not cold.

It’s still a sturdy cake. It’s kind of like eating a delicious custard cake except that it tastes like a cherry cheese Danish :)

How should I store this cake?

Store this cake in the refrigerator for 3-4 days. I will admit I thought it tasted better 2 days after I baked it .

I store it right in the baking pan tightly covered with foil or covered in an airtight container. You don’t want the cheesecake to dry out and you don’t want it to absorb any random odors from other foods in your refrigerator, should there be any.

Can I freeze this cake?

Yes. You can freeze this cake for longer storage. I always prefer to freeze individual pieces. I wrap each piece in plastic wrap or waxed paper and then place them in a zip top freezer bag.

You could also freeze the whole cake, if desired. For this, I would wrap well with plastic wrap and then with foil unless you had an extra large freezer bag to store it in. I would also wait to drizzle the icing until after the whole cake was thawed.

In the whole cake case, I would thaw overnight in the refrigerator.

Cherry Cheese Danish Cake. It’s like getting to eat cheesecake, cake and a Danish pastry all at the same time…and for breakfast, no less! Sounds like a sweet way to celebrate just about any day in February to me :)

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