Chocolate Chip Marble Bundt Cake

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Chocolate Chip Marble Bundt CakeTomorrow is National Bundt Day, and Food Librarian and the food blogging community are baking more than their fair share of bundts. In fact, this is Food Librarian’s third year of I Like Big Bundts, a time when she bakes a bundt a day for 30 days. That’s a lot of bundts!

Now that I have one or two or three or possibly more bundt pans, I decided I have no excuse for not participating, at least on National Bundt Day. Plus, my coworkers will expect something in the office tomorrow since I took today as a vacation day. I know, they’re demanding. I decided to make something with chocolate chips, and my google search happened to pull up this bundt on my friend Jami’s blog, Night Baking.

There are a bunch of steps to this bundt–it’s definitely not one of those recipes where you throw everything in one bowl then into the pan, but the end result is a moist, not overly sweet cake. My marbling skills are apparently lacking, so the inside of my cake looks a little sad; somehow I don’t think my coworkers will mind once they take a bite.

Happy National Bundt Day!

Ingredients
2 1/2 cups (17.5 ounces) sugar, divided
1/2 cup (1.5 ounces) cocoa powder
1/4 cup light corn syrup
1/2 cup (4 ounces) hot water
2 1/2 teaspoons vanilla, divided
2 2/3 cups (11 3/8 ounces) flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 sticks butter, at room temperature
4 eggs
1 cup (8 ounces) milk
1 cup (6 ounces) chocolate chips

Preparation
Make the chocolate syrup first: in a small saucepan, whisk together 1/2 cup (3.5 ounces) sugar, cocoa powder, corn syrup, and water. Bring just to a simmer, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and whisk in 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla. Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 350F. Spray or grease and flour a 12-cup bundt pan.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Use the stand mixer to cream the butter with the remaining 2 cups (14 ounces) sugar until light and fluffy, about two minutes. Beat in the eggs one at a time until thoroughly incorporated. Scrape down the bowl, then beat in the remaining 2 teaspoons vanilla.

Reduce the mixer speed to low. Beat in a third of the flour mixture just until the flour begins to disappear into the batter. Beat in half the milk. Beat in another third of the flour, then the rest of the milk, and then the rest of the flour; mix until smooth. Gently fold in the chocolate chips.

Scoop out a third of the batter into a medium bowl. Whisk in the reserved chocolate syrup and set aside. Spoon another third of the batter into the bundt pan and smooth it with a spatula. Spoon the chocolate batter evenly over it. Pour the remaining vanilla batter over the top. Lightly swirl the batter with a wooden skewer or butter knife to achieve a marbled effect. Making a continuous figure eight motion around the pan works well.

Bake until the cake springs back lightly when touched, about 60-70 minutes. Cool in the pan on a wire rack. Invert the cooled cake onto a cake plate and dust with powdered sugar if desired.

Recipe from Buttercake Bakery via Night Baking.

Vanilla Bean Bundt Cake

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Vanilla Bean Bundt Cake I wanted to like this cake. In fact, I wanted to love this cake. I thought this would be the kind of cake I hoped my coworkers would devour because I would want to eat too much of it. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), that did not happen.

While the flavor was nice, the cake was a bit dry. It screamed for a glass of milk or something to go along with it. Of course, I should note that the original recipe called for strawberries and their juices to be served with it, so maybe had I done that, I wouldn’t think the recipe needed some kind of moisture. Has anyone else made this? What did you think?

Cake Ingredients
Nonstick vegetable oil spray
1 teaspoon bourbon (I used vanilla)
1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup plus 6 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 3/4 sticks), room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup (packed) golden brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 large egg yolk
1/2 cup buttermilk

Glaze Ingredients
2/3 cup powdered sugar
4 teaspoons (or more) whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Cake Preparation
Position rack in center of oven and preheat to 325°F. Butter and flour standard Bundt pan, then spray pan with nonstick spray. Pour bourbon into small bowl. Scrape seeds from vanilla bean into bourbon; stir to blend well (reserve scraped vanilla bean for another use).

Whisk flour, baking powder, and salt in medium bowl to blend. Using electric mixer, beat butter and both sugars in large bowl until light and fluffy. Add eggs and egg yolk 1 at a time, beating until well blended after each addition. Beat in bourbon-vanilla mixture. Add flour mixture in 2 additions alternately with buttermilk in 1 addition, beating just until blended after each addition. Transfer batter to prepared pan; smooth top evenly (batter will come only halfway up sides of pan).

Bake cake until tester inserted near center comes out clean, about 55 minutes. Cool in pan on rack 15 minutes. Invert cake onto rack and cool completely.

Glaze Preparation
Whisk powdered sugar, 4 teaspoons milk, and vanilla in small bowl to blend, adding more milk by 1/4 teaspoonfuls if glaze is too thick to drizzle.

Place sheet of foil on work surface. Place cake (still on rack) atop foil. Using spoon, drizzle glaze over cake in zigzag pattern. Let cake stand at room temperature until glaze sets, about 15 minutes. DO AHEAD Cake can be made up to 1 day ahead. Cover with cake dome and let stand at room temperature.

Recipe from Bon Appetit.