Sadness warning ahead, sorry

It’s been a long time but my mom used to make a chocolate bundt cake. My dad loves it, which says a lot. He’d usually cut a slice and then dunk forkfuls into a cup of milk. It never lasted very long in the house. Debbie downer time so skip a bit if you want to remain on chocolate cake cloud nine. In May of 2018 my mom was diagnosed with stage 4 ER+ Metastatic Breast Cancer. She hasn’t really baked or anything since that time. It’s part of why I chose to ask her for some of these recipes. I’m realizing we’re living on borrowed time. She has beaten the initial 12 - 18 month prognosis. It’s taken a very large toll on the family. I love my parents dearly. I know my mom won’t be here forever so I wanted to learn to make the things I remember loving so much. This is my way of passing those on and being able to keep her spirit alive after it’s finally time to say goodbye.

We were eating lunch this week and I asked her about this recipe. She was kind enough to write it down for me and give it to me for Christmas. I asked her where she got it. I expected an answer of Betty Crocker’s Cookbook. To my complete surprise she told me that was given this recipe from a friend she had when living in South Dakota. I had never known that. It’s weird the things you learn about your parents when you grow up.

The recipe below is what was given to me. What I’m making this time is what I’m hoping will be a small step up while still completely in the tradition of this cake. I don’t have a normal shaped bundt pan so it’ll be cool to see it in my “fancy” pan. I also realized that I had leftover espresso morsels and dark chocolate chunks. As you may know from my own cookie recipe I love chocolate and coffee, separate and together. Why not continue the theme and use those. To keep a bit of the original I added some mini semi-sweet morsels I had on hand. That’s probably a bad idea as they’re very very tiny. They’re probably going to get completely lost in the cake once they melt, but hey who knows. I also decided on the name of “The Intro Chocolate Bundt Cake” because it’s put together with a box mix and pudding mix as the main dry ingredients. Some day I may try to create “The DAB Chocolate Bundt Cake” and figure out the best set of dry ingredients for this. Good be a good science and learning experience. It’s in the oven right now as I type this so I’ll let you bake on yourself and see how it turns out.

Ingredients

1 box of chocolate fudge cake mix
1 small package of instant chocolate pudding (3.6 oz)
4 eggs
1/2 Cup canola oil
1/2 Cup water
1 Cup of sour cream (1 8oz container)
1 10 oz package of chocolate chips - semi sweet
- For this I substituted the following:
- 1 cup of Wholefoods 365 dark chocolate (67%) chunks
- 1 cup of Nestle Toll House Espresso Morsels
- 1/2 cup of Nestle Toll House Semi-Sweet Mini Morsels
powdered sugar for dusting

Instructions

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.
In a large bowl combine the cake mix, instant pudding mix, water, canola oil, sour cream, and eggs. If you like the struggle, or want less dished to do, mix with a spatula until combined or you can’t feel your shoulders. Otherwise mix well with a hand mixer.
Fold in the chocolate chunks, morsels, and espresso morsels.
Pour the batter into a greased bundt pan.
Bake at 350 for 45 to 60 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Cool in the pan on a wire rack.
Gently remove from bundt pan once cool.
Create your own fancy icing, ganache, or per the original recipe dust with powdered sugar (which my mom never did).