Peppermint Bark Bundt Cake

Mr. and Mrs. Christmas Confection 

are pleased to announce the marriage of their daughter

Peppermint Bark 

To

Chocolate Breakfast Bundt Cake

son of Mr. and Mrs. Let Them Eat Cake Anytime

You are cordially invited to the December wedding 

of a match made in heaven

 

Is there anything not to love about peppermint bark?  Is there anything not to love about chocolate breakfast bundt cake?  It's so nice to see such good flavors join together. 

Cake:

2 cups (9 ounces) all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

1 cup butter (2 sticks)

½ cup high quality Dutch process cocoa powder


¾ cup water


2 cups sugar


1 cup sour cream


1 tablespoon vanilla extract


2 large eggs

1 teaspoon peppermint extract

1/2 cup roughly chopped *Hershey's mint chocolate chips




Glaze:


½ cup powdered sugar


1 to 2 tablespoons milk

1 teaspoon cocoa powder

Frosting: 

1/2 cup *Hershey's mint chocolate chips

2 tablespoons butter

2 teaspoons light corn syrup 

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/3 cup crushed candy canes



Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 

Combine flour, soda, and salt in a large mixing bowl. Whisk until incorporated and set aside.

Gently melt butter in a large saucepan. Add cocoa powder and whisk until smooth. Add water and remove from heat. Whisk in the following ingredients, in order listed: sugar, sour cream, vanilla, eggs and peppermint extract. Whisk until smooth.

Pour chocolate mixture over flour and whisk until well blended and no lumps remain. Spray a 10-cup Bundt pan with “Pam with Flour." Pour mixture into prepared Bundt pan. Sprinkle the chopped chocolate over the surface of the batter and gently swirl with a knife to barely incorporate the chocolate.

Bake for 40 to 45 minutes, or until the cake is just firm to the touch and is starting to pull away from the sides of the pan. Remove from oven and place on a cooling rack for 10 minutes. While cake is cooling prepare the glaze by whisking the powdered sugar and 1 teaspoon cocoa powder with enough milk to make a thin glaze. Carefully invert the warm cake onto a large plate or cake stand. Using a pastry brush liberally brush surface of cake with glaze. Cool completely. 

To make frosting, gently melt mint chocolate chips, butter, light corn syrup and vanilla extract in the microwave. Stir until smooth and shiny. Use a spoon to drizzle the glaze over the cold cake. Sprinkle crushed candy canes over top and allow to sit until glaze becomes slightly firm.

Notes on the recipe:

-The crushed candy canes will start to soften and get sticky after a day or two.  It might be best to add the frosting and crushed candy canes on the day you will serve the cake.

-I made a side by side comparison of this cake using Hershey's special dark cocoa powder and E. Guittard cocoa rouge cocoa powder. The E. Guittard was unbelievably better but it can be hard to find.  Here in Connecticut you can buy it at Bishops's market in Guillford or the Williams Sonoma outlet (!!!! love that store) at the Westbrook outlets.

-*If you can't find Hershey's mint chocolate chips substitute semisweet chocolate chips plus 1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract.

-There is some weird science going on with this cake batter.  If you mix the ingredients in the order listed: sugar, sour cream, vanilla, and eggs then the batter will be fairly thick. If you add the sugar last the batter will be very thin and the chopped chocolate will sink, stick to the bottom of the pan and burn.

-I always spray my Bundt pan with “Pam with Flour” and my cakes always release perfectly. I used to grease and flour but that never worked very well – little pieces of the cake would stick and tear away when I inverted the cake. Also, the flour would inevitably leave a white haze over portions of the cake.

First Day of Spring Lemon Cake

Every year my husband takes a group of undergraduate students to a rainforest in South America over spring break. And every year I sulk for the two weeks he is gone because I haven't had the opportunity to accompany them - yet. This year I decided it was time to stop whining. I planned to spend the entire spring break doing things I enjoy - reading, eating, sleeping in, and avoiding all laundry and house cleaning. Top on my list was to not make dinner for the two weeks he was gone. Instead the girls and I planned to eat at our favorite restaurants, or not eat, or eat just warm popcorn laced with M&M's for dinner. (You really should try it - just pop the corn, pour some M&M's over the top and wait about 5 minutes. When you take a bite the warm chocolate spills out of the crunchy M&M shell and mixes with the salty popcorn. Yummmm.) So I stopped cooking the day he left. After a while I started to panic because I was enjoying my cooking hiatus a little too much. What if I didn't want to start again?

I shouldn't have worried because after about a week I started to get the itch to bake, which is very different than making dinner. I baked the things Scott doesn't really love, things with cooked fruit in them like banana bread (this one was punctuated with chocolate and crystalized ginger) and lemon cake. The lemon cake was the perfect antidote to my end-of-winter-when-will-my-husband-get-home blues. I combined several recipes into one cake and was not disappointed. It came out yellow and fresh and tart and sweet and especially moist. I contemplated naming it "Spring Break Lemon Cake" but when I walked into work with my new creation one of my nursing friends pointed out that it was the first day of spring. It was just too perfect - the first day of spring, a lovely lemon cake, and my husband due to return home at midnight. So from now on I will celebrate the first day of spring by making this lemon cake. And next year, if I am lucky enough to be in the jungles of Ecuador on the first day of spring I will make the cake the day I get home.

First Day of Spring Lemon Bundt Cake

3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (13.5 ounces)
4 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
4 teaspoons grated lemon zest
1 cup well-stirred plain whole-milk yogurt (not low fat or nonfat)
2 cups sugar
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
6 large eggs
1 cup vegetable oil


Glaze
2 to 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon yogurt
2 cups confectioners’ sugar (8 ounces)



Preheat oven to 350° F. Spray 12-cup Bundt pan with nonstick baking
spray with flour (although it's not as easy, you could brush the Bundt pan with a mixture of 1 tablespoon flour and 1 tablespoon melted butter instead).



In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Add the lemon zest and whisk to mix thoroughly.

In a large bowl, combine the yogurt, sugar, lemon juice, and eggs, stirring to mix
well. Add the flour mixture and stir to just combine. Add the oil
and stir well. Don’t worry - at first it will look like an oily mess,
just keep stirring and it will all come together. Pour batter into the
prepared pan.

Bake for 40 to 45 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the center
comes out clean. Be careful to not over-bake.

While cake is baking prepare the glaze: whisk 2 tablespoons lemon
juice, yogurt, and confectioners’ sugar until smooth, adding more
lemon juice gradually as needed until glaze is thick but still
pourable.

Cool cake in pan on wire rack set over a baking sheet or parchment
paper for 10 minutes, then invert cake directly onto rack. Brush or
pour half of glaze over warm cake and let cool for 1 hour; spoon
remaining glaze evenly over top of cake and continue to cool to room
temperature, at least 2 hours.