Chocolate Bundt cake
indisputably the most moist chocolate cake recipe you will ever find!
Christmas is my most favorite time of the year! And baking makes it to my top 3 favorite things to do during christmas time. Decorating the tree and wrapping presents are the other two 🙂 Here’s a picture of my tree this year!
Now for the recipe! My umpteen experiments with chocolate cake-making culminated successfully in this rich, moist chocolate bundt cake which I love to make. You can also make a regular cake with this recipe instead of a bundt, but I always feel using a bundt pann is better for cake recipes that have a lot of wet ingredients in order to get an evenly baked moist cake. Chocolate cakes made in square or rectangular pans tend to become dry and crumbly on the edges, therefore bundt pan is better.
Same goes with making egg-less cakes. When omitting eggs from any recipe, switch to a bundt pan. Baking an egg-less cake in a bundt pan, ensures that the cake will not sink in the center and you get an even bake throughout! there you have my top secret tip for egg-less baking! As far as the recipe is concerned, for egg-less baking, I normally increase the leavening agent 1.5 times (baking powder in this case) of the original recipe and add 1/4 cup of greek yogurt for each egg that needs to be replaced. This works for most cake recipes.
Although this is a recipe with eggs, you know how to make it without eggs now 😉
This recipe is a star by itself, but you can enhance it with a filling or topping of your choice, read until the end for some recommendations 🙂 In the picture above, I have decorated the cake center with a paper flower and some rosemary sprigs (just for decoration)
You will need:
Wet ingredients (to be mixed together):
200 g butter (a little less than 1 cup and a little more than 3/4 cup of butter cut in small cubes/ 2 sticks of butter/ ~200 g of butter)
1 1/2 cup granulated sugar (fine granulated sugar, use castor sugar in India)
3 large eggs
1/2 cup Greek Yogurt
1/4 cup milk
2 tsp vanilla extract
dry ingredients (dry mix together):
1 3/4 cup all purpose flour (Maida)
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (I used extra dark one)
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt – omit this if using salted butter
1/2 cup coarsely chopped Walnuts – optional
Procedure:
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (160-180 C).
- In a large bowl, mix together flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt
- beat butter and sugar until pale and fluffy, 3 to 5 minutes.
- Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition; add vanilla.
- Next add the greek yogurt and milk and beat on medium-low speed until well combined and fluffy.
- I like to do all my blending in one direction, either clockwise or anti-clockwise. I feel you incorporate more air in in this fashion.
- Add the dry mixture in 3 parts, fold in with a spatula and blend with the blender when manageable.
- Fold in the walnuts
- Transfer batter to a greased pan (with butter). I used a 12 cup Bundt pan (10 inch diameter/ 2.8 liters) bundt pan. smooth top with a spatula and drop the pan on a folded kitchen towel gently to even the surface.
- Bake until a toothpick or knife comes out clean. Mine took about 45 minutes. Transfer pan to a wire rack to cool completely before removing from the pan
Variations:
- Top with a chocolate glaze or a caramel sauce
- Frost with chocolate frosting, ganache, cream cheese frosting or chocolate buttercream
- Instead of the walnuts, you can add dark chocolate chunks/ chips for extra gooey chocolate bites in the cake
- Serve warm with a scoop of ice cream and some chopped nuts and chocolate sauce!
- you can also add a layer cream cheese filling in the center. For this beat together – 8 oz cream cheese+1/2 cup sugar+1egg. Add half of the chocolate cake batter in the pan. Then add a layer/ ring of the cream cheese mixture in the center and top with the other ha;f of the chosolate batter. Add about 15 minutes of baking time for this. Here is a picture of the result:
