Mama Needs a New Bundt Pan

The one I currently use was my grandmother's. It has served me very well. Many an Evil Chocolate Cake has been devoured from this mold.

I had been saving this recipe for a long time, waiting for an excuse to make it... Brown Sugar Chocolate Chip Pound Cake with Maple-Espresso Glaze. Mmmmm. Found on alpineberry. It tasted about a million times better than it looked. It was amazing. No one minded its hideousness. I abstained on the glaze due to the righteous caffeine-free relatives at the party. Guess I will have to try it again with my (future) new Bundt pan.

Brown Sugar Chocolate Chip Pound Cake with Maple-Espresso Glaze from Bon Appétit, October 2007 as found at alpineberry.com
(makes 12 servings)

Cake:
12 ounces chopped bittersweet chocolate (or 12 ounces chocolate chip morsels)
3 cups all purpose flour (plus an additional amount for dusting pan)
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1 cup (8 ounces/2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temp
1 1/2 cups firmly packed brown sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp maple extract (I didn't have any so I used 4 tbsp pure maple syrup)
4 large eggs
1 cup buttermilk

Glaze:
1 cup powdered sugar
2 tbsp pure maple syrup
2 tbsp (or more) heavy cream
1 1/2 tsp instant espresso powder

To make the cake:
Preheat oven to 325F. Generously butter a 12-cup Bundt pan then dust pan lightly with flour.

Place your chopped chocolate (or chocolate chips) in medium bowl. From your 3 cups all purpose flour, measure about 2 tablespoons flour and toss those 2 tablespoons in with your chocolate. (Tossing your chopped chocolate with a tiny bit of flour helps keep them evenly suspended in the batter.)

Sift remaining flour with baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream butter and brown sugar until fluffy, about 2-3 minutes. Mix in vanilla extract and maple extract (or maple syrup). Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.

On low speed, mix in the flour mixture in 3 additions alternately with buttermilk in 2 additions, beginning and ending with flour mixture. Detach the bowl from the stand mixer and, using a spoon or spatula, fold in the chopped chocolate. Spread your batter evenly in your prepared pan.

Bake at 325F until cake tester comes out clean and the cake begins to pull away from sides of pan, about 60 minutes. Cool cake in pan over a cooling rack for about 30 minutes. Then invert cake onto cooling rack and let it cool completely before glazing.

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A couple days ago I made the mistake of trying again, thinking I could just grease 'er up more. Well, no such luck. Just as hideous and almost as tasty...

Coconut Tea Cake from Baking by Dorie Greenspan (thank you SLC Public Library!)
2 c. flour
1 t. baking powder
pinch salt
1 c. canned unsweetened coconut milk
1/2 stick unsalted butter, cut into four pieces
4 eggs, room temp
2 c. sugar
1 t. vanilla
2 t. dark rum (optional)
3/4 c. shredded coconut

- Preheat to 350. Butter Kuglehopf or Bundt.
- Mix four, b powder and salt
- Pour coconut milk into small saucepan, add butter and heat until hot and melted; remove but keep warm.
- With mixer and whisk attachment, beat eggs and sugar at med-high until pale, thick and almost doubled, about 3 minutes. Beat in vanilla and rum. Reduce to low and add dry. Still at low, add coconut just unitl blended and then the hot milk/butter until smooth. Pour into pan.
- Bake 60-65 minutes. Cool for 10 minutes.

Wrapped in plastic will keep at room temp for up to 4 days, longer and she recommends toasting it and using like biscotti.

We ate half within the first 30 minutes and unloaded the rest on Sarah & Paul, ugly as it was.