The Old School Upgrade That Instantly Transforms Angel Food Cake

If you love a few maraschino cherries zhuzhing up fruit cakes, cocktails, and hot fudge sundaes — and light and fluffy angel food cake serving "pillow" energy in a berries 'n' cream trifle — meet the retro dessert your lil nostalgic heart has secretly been craving: cherry angel food cake. Grab a tube pan and a jar of Luxardos — we're going all in.

A 1950s cookbook-era stunner packed with party-ready convenience, this recipe requires a scratch-made angel food cake, studded with sliced maraschino cherries that have been patted dry so none of that neon essence leaches into your snow-white sponge. Fill a tube pan with half the batter, place a layer of cherries on top, pour in the remaining batter, and finish things off with your most beautiful fruit. That last round of cherries becomes the decoration for your naked cake — which is begging for a dollop of homemade whipped cream and a generous drizzle of cherry sauce. After these steps, this cake makes funfetti look like it's phoning it in.

Of course, you could use your extra syrup for a very vintage, pink cherry icing; using a few well-placed stemmed cherries as decoration. Or, go real retro by adding paper towel-dried pineapple chunks in a do-si-do pattern with the cherries, à la old school fruit cup. If you're lucky enough to have any uneaten slices, turn your leftover cake into French toast for breakfast tomorrow.

I'm in a lifelong relationship with ultra-sweet, supernaturally red maraschino cherries that reach beyond mere garnish to become a full-fledged food group. And while cherry angel food cake is perfect just as it is, we came here to go cherrier and angel food cake-ier, amiright? Ready to pump up the volume on your stone fruit obsesh? Check out these cherry red retro dessert recipes (if the cherries aren't canned or jarred, we don't want 'em).

If you haven't tasted "heaven on earth cake," you're missing out on a whipped confection that adds milk, heavy cream, and instant Jell-O to angel food cake and cherry pie filling. (Just sprinkle some slivered almonds on top if you're craving some crunch.) You could also try a two-ingredient cherry angel food cake, featuring cherry pie filling and boxed angel food mix that bakes into a dusty pink sheet cake. Or corral your cherries into the topping with an angel food cake iced with terrazzo-esque cherry frosting. And don't sleep on "cherries in the snow" (just like the Revlon lipstick color that debuted in 1952) which tosses angel food pieces with cream cheese and whipped cream, and polishes the whole thing off with a layer of cherry pie filling.

My favorite part about maraschino history is that after these gems landed stateside, not even reports claiming they were a "noxious," "toxic" byproduct of coal tar could stop their rise to the top. (Fingers crossed that natural dyes will be just as luminescent as the retro food additives that are banned today.) Maraschino cherries once represented fluorescent luxury, and they still lend a perfect candy-like burst of old-school flavor to angel food cake today.