Madhouse recipe : Chocolate Bundt Cake

 Last month, I showed you the spectacular (if I say so myself !) Polka Dot Swiss Roll that I made using the recipes and equipment from the first ever Bake Box (click through to read my review).  Here's the second cake that I made using the Bake Box - a chocolate Bundt cake. 

The original version uses fresh redcurrants which I couldn't get hold of so I simplified this one slightly. Head over to the Bake Box blog to see the original recipe, which is much prettier and more grown-up than mine. I used the recipe from the website because I wasn't sure of quantities to fill the mould but you could use any cake mix you like really.

Chocolate Bundt Cake

ingredients :

100g butter, plus extra melted butter for greasing

160g dark chocolate, chopped

3 eggs, separated

140g caster sugar

2tbsp milk

200g plain flour, sieved

2tsp baking powder

2tbsp cocoa powder

1tsp vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 180ºC. Grease the bundt mould with melted butter and place on a baking tray.

Melt the butter and chocolate together in a bain marie or in the microwave.

 Whisk the egg yolks in a bowl with 125g of the sugar until thick and pale-coloured. One day I will have a KitchenAid but until then, I have a keen little helper with a Rabid Rabbits whisk ! Whisk in the milk, flour, baking powder, cocoa powder and vanilla, then mix in the melted butter and chocolate, until evenly combined.

Whisk the egg whites in a separate bowl until they form stiff peaks, then whisk in the remaining sugar and carefully fold it into the cake mixture. Pour into the bundt mould and bash it on the work top a couple of times to remove air bubbles.

Bake for 50 minutes then leave to cool for 30 minutes before carefully removing it from the mould and leaving it to cool completely on a wire rack. The recipe card says to put it in the freezer while you prepare the icing, but I skipped that part because I couldn't be bothered to walk all the way down to the garage (and I also don't think I had enough space to fit it in there anyway !). With hindsight, it would have cooled the cake completely so that the icing didn't go slightly melty in places.

The official recipe uses chocolate icing but I decided to keep things quick and simple by making a very quick butter icing using margarine and icing sugar, along with a squeeze of the professional grade pink gel food colouring from the Bake Box.

I quickly piped this in squiggly lines along the ridges and sprinkled over some silver balls. If you ignore the melted patches of icing, it looked pretty amazing so I'll definitely be experimenting more with my new Bundt mould.

For more info about the Bake Box : www.the-bake-box.com

Standard subscription price: £14.99 per month + £2.99 P&P

Disclosure : I received a Bake Box for review.