Friday, January 23, 2009

Chocolate Chocolate Cake


My husband's birthday was this week . . . great reason to bake a cake! There are several cake recipes in my "to try" file, but I needed something that would come together quickly (we've been at a basketball tournament every night this week), so I chose this recipe, which starts with a cake mix.

I found the recipe a few weeks ago at The Sisters' Cafe and shared it with Tressa and Sierra. Sierra entered a variation of this recipe into a "strangest ingredient" contest - she substituted grated spam for the oil (and used a strawberry cake mix, cheesecake pudding mix, and omitted the chocolate). She won the contest - and guess what? The cake was actually really good! Of course, I baked my cake without spam, but I'm still surprised at how good Sierra's spam cake tasted!

Chocolate Bundt Cake

1 devils food cake mix
1 pkg. instant pudding mix (the recipe calls for chocolate; I used vanilla)
4 large eggs
1 cup sour cream
½ cup warm water
½ cup oil (I used canola)
Optional: 1 ½ cups semi sweet chocolate chips

Place all ingredients except chocolate chips in a large mixing bowl. Blend with electric mixer 1 minute. Stir down sides. Continue to mix on medium speed for 2-3 minutes. Stir in chocolate chips (if using). Pour batter into prepared bundt pan. Bake 45-50 minutes at 350 degrees. Cool 20 minutes. Invert onto serving platter.

frosting
1 stick (8 tbsp.) unsalted butter (not margarine!)
4 tbsp. cocoa powder
1/3 cup milk
3 to 4 cups sifted powdered sugar

Melt butter in medium saucepan over low heat. Whisk in cocoa and milk. Bring mixture just to boil, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Beat in powdered sugar with electric mixer until thickened and smooth. Pour warm frosting over warm cake. Allow frosting to cool before serving or covering for storage.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I will be trying this! Look soooo yummy! Spam huh...wierd...was it salty?

Tara said...

Thanks for the recipe, McKenzie. I have to bake a birthday cake tomorrow, so I'm going to try this out with yellow or white cake mix. Yummy!
~Tara Huff

michaela said...

Yum,chocolate cake looks delicious.

I like Blue Eggs and Yellow Tomatoes, but there weren't a ton of recipes where I thought "I have to make this!". Its a large book too, wider than it is tall.

McKenzie said...

Hi Leah - the spam cake was maybe just a *little* salty - but not as much as you'd think!

Tara - good luck with the cake, I hope it turns out well! Good to hear from you!

Michaela - thanks for stopping by! I guess I'll have to check out the cookbook next time I'm in a bigger bookstore to see what I think . . .