Chocolate Sour Cream Buttermilk Bundt Cake
Adapted from Cook's Illustrated, this is a moist chocolate cake that's simple and delicious. Because it is so rich you can skip the glaze and dust it with powdered sugar, but feel free to drizzle on your favorite chocolate glaze anyway!
Servings 12
Ingredients
- ¾ cup natural cocoa not Dutch-processed, 2 ¼ ounces
- 6 ounces chopped bittersweet chocolate (170 grams)
- 1 teaspoon instant espresso powder or 1 teaspoon coffee extract
- ¾ cup boiling water
- 1 cup sour cream room temperature
- 1 ¾ cups unbleached all-purpose flour (250 grams)
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 12 tablespoons unsalted butter (170 grams)
- 2 cups packed light brown sugar (400 grams)
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 5 large eggs room temperature
- ½ cup regular or miniature chocolate chips optional
- confectioners' sugar for dusting
Chocolate Ganache Glaze
- 3 oz dark chocolate (or bittersweet), chopped
- ½ tablespoon light corn syrup
- ½ tablespoon butter
- ⅓ cup heavy cream
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a 12 cup bundt pan with flour-added cooking spray or grease and flour thoroughly.
- Combine cocoa, chocolate, and espresso powder in medium heatproof bowl; pour boiling water over chocolate and whisk until smooth. Cool to room temperature; then whisk in sour cream (or combination of sour cream and buttermilk).
- In a second bowl, whisk together flour, salt, and baking soda.
- In a standing mixer fitted with paddle, beat butter, sugar, and vanilla on medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Reduce speed to medium and add eggs one at a time, mixing about 30 seconds after each egg.
- By hand or using very lowest speed of mixer, stir ⅓ of the flour into batter. Add half of the chocolate/sour cream mixture and stir until incorporated. Scrape bowl and add remaining flour mixture and all of remaining chocolate mixture. Add chocolate chips if using.
- Pour batter into prepared Bundt pan. Bake until wooden skewer inserted into center comes out with few crumbs attached, 42-45 minutes.
- Cool in pan 10 minutes, then invert cake onto parchment-lined wire rack. Note: When inverting, you will need to run a knife around the edge to loosen.
- Let cool completely and dust with confectioners' sugar OR make the Chocolate Ganache Icing.
Chocolate Ganache Icing
- Put the chocolate, corn syrup and butter in a heat-proof bowl.
- In a small saucepan, heat the cream. Pour the hot cream over the chocolate mixture and stir until smooth and shiny. Spoon over the cake or transfer to a freezer bag. If using a freezer bag, snip off the bottom corner and pipe over the cake.
Notes
To grease the pan you can use your usual method or flour-added baking spray. Another method you might consider is to mix 2 tablespoons melted shortening with 1 tablespoon of unsweetened cocoa powder and paint the mixture all over the inside of the pan.
