Nothing Bundt Delicious

Oh, hey there. I know, it's been a while. I'm sure you've been longing for my witticism to grace your device screens since my last blog a month ago. Trust me when I tell you that I have definitely not gone without dessert the past four weeks (I'd literally rather die). I made some Reese's blondies and thumbprint cookies filled with jam--both yummy, but the recipes need perfecting before I release them into the world to ensure they're ready for mass consumption; then there were the Piña Colada cookie cups--I totally burnt my cookie cups, which is why you should never bake while sleep deprived. But I will make these again this summer and share their epic deliciousness when I can take pretty, unburnt cookie photos after a solid eight hours of sleep; finally, there was a lightened up version of my Dulce de Leche pie for Cinco de Mayo--find the updated recipe here. So, it definitely wasn't for a lack of baking, but I like to reserve the blog for recipes that have the show-stopping photo factor AND taste like they were made by angels...of which I am most definitely not. More like a quasi-evil baking genius. And by quasi-evil I actually mean I could double as a Disney Villain with little to no change in my daily routine. I wanted to return to blogging with a recipe that would make even the strictest dietician say, "Damn...I need to eat that." And thus I bring you a fudge-filled vanilla bundt cake with fudge ganache.

More like, "Daaaaaaaamnnnnn I need to eat that."

"Surprise inside" cakes are usually filled with shapes or brightly colored layers, but I can think of nothing better than cutting into a cake to find it is both frosted on the outside and the inside with thick layers of chocolatey goodness. Fill just about anything with chocolate: pie, cake, donut, other chocolate, and I'm going to fight you to the death for it. So it's a good thing I'm sharing the recipe, and this way, no one gets hurt. I'm legally obligated to share this with my husband since I'm pretty sure 'in sickness and dessert' was a vow. But he does have to put up with all of this (gesturing wildly around my entire being), so it's the least I can do. I may be bordering on insane, but at least I'm health conscious (pick your battles--I have the anxiety level of a restrained grizzly bear, but like, a grizzly bear in really great shape). This lovely little bundle of chocolate fudgy goodness will only set you back 274 calories for 12 slices. You could easily adjust to 16 servings for even fewer calories, but I also eat like a grizzly bear fresh out of hibernation, so if my cake plate isn't heavy when I lift it, then there's not enough cake on it.

Can you curl a cake plate? Asking for a friend.

The cake recipe itself is from scratch, but I assume you could probably try to do this with a box of vanilla cake mix, but the cake needs to be dense to hold the fudge layer in place, so just keep that in mind. To make the vanilla bundt cake, gather:

• 1/2 cup butter at room temp
• 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce (you can use another 1/2 cup of butter, but this trims soooo many calories, and makes a dense bundt to hold the fudge in place. I think 3/4 cup butter + 1/4 cup applesauce would suffice in firmness with a richer, more buttery flavor if you're not worried about calories)
• 1 cup of Swerve granulated sweetner (this isn't a particularly "sugary" tasting cake since it is more of a sponge cake, so if you like sweeter cakes, try upping the amount of sugar, but adjust the ratio of butter and applesauce to match)
• 2 eggs at room temp
• 1 TBS vanilla extract
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup of skim milk
• 1 1/2 cups of All Purpose flour

Start by preheating your oven to 325 and creaming the butter and Swerve until fluffy. Then add in the applesauce, eggs, and vanilla, and blend well for two minutes on medium-high. While this is mixing, spray the ever-loving bejesus out of a bundt cake pan with cooking spray. Just when you think you've sprayed enough Pam to cause potential combustion issues in your kitchen, spray with one more layer for good measure and then return to your cake batter. Add in the baking powder, salt, and 1/2 cup of flour. Blend on low, then add in 1/4 cup of milk, blend on low some more, then add in another 1/2 cup of flour. Stop to scrape the bowl as needed before adding in the remaining 1/4 cup of milk followed by the last 1/2 cup of flour. Don't over mix--things should be slightly lumpy thanks to the applesauce, but otherwise, everything should be mixed until just incorporated.

Pictured: half a can of Pam and the cake batter.

 Pour your cake batter into a medium bowl and set aside. Clean out your mixing bowl and paddle attachment, and get ready to make magic. And by magic, I mean fudge.

This recipe is a great way to use up miscellaneous cream cheeses.

For the fudge layer, you need:

• 5 ounces of cream cheese at room temp (I used 2 ounces 1/3 fat and 3 ounces regular fat cream cheese. No method to my madness here, it's just what I had on hand in the fridge)
• 3/4 cup of semisweet chocolate chips*
• 1 egg at room temp

*If you want a darker chocolate fudge, try 1/2 cup semisweet and 1/4 cup dark chocolate chips. I got my dark chocolate chips out because I wasn't sure I had enough semisweet chips, but in a rare instance of my luck not being terrible, I had the perfect amount to make my cake and decorate it with semisweet chips.

Small miracles.

Blend your cream cheese on medium-high for a minute to get light and fluffy while you nuke your chocolate chips in a microwave safe bowl for a minute and a half, then stir until all chips are melted. Dump your melted chocolate into your stand mixer and blend with the cream cheese. When things have come together completely, add in the egg and blend until things look nice and silky smooth. Pour your fudge filling into a piping bag fitted with a large open tip or a Ziplock baggy with a chunk snipped out of the corner, and prepare yourself for a terrible photo montage.

Now, take 2/3 of the cake batter and place it in your "so greased it could cause a kitchen fire" cake pan.

Then pipe a few circles of fudge in the middle of the cake. Make sure it isn't touching any edges of the pan. This does not look appetizing. This is a bad "daaaaaamnnnnn."

But once you smooth it out with a small spatula, it's decidedly less uh, "dog poo" like, in consistency. Trust me--it definitely looks better after it's cooked.

Finish up by adding the remaining 1/3 of your cake batter. I spooned the batter gently on top of the chocolate layer, and then I used the back of my spoon to gingerly spread the top layer out without disturbing the chocolate layer inside. Make sure the chocolate layer is completely covered.

 Then bake your cake at 325 for 45-50 minutes. Your cake should have a nice golden coloring when it's finished, and a toothpick inserted on the center edge and outside edge should come out of the cake clean. Let it rest on a cooling rack **while still in the pan** for 10-15 minutes. I cooked mine for 50 minutes, but it probably would've been wise to take out of the oven at 45. *Slightly over baked,* but still delicious.

During those 10-15 minutes, pray to whatever deity you believe in that you can remove this from the pan without incident.

I always take a small angled spatula and run it around the edges of my bundt cakes, very gently lifting to ensure nothing it sticking to the pan. I also carefully do this around the center circle of my bundt pan. Then I place an upside down plate on top of the pan, and I flip it over slowly and extremely carefully, all the while cursing my "all thumbs" approach to life and general grace akin to that of a bear freshly woken from hibernation...maybe I really am a grizzly bear? The are some strong parallels...

At this point, I also remind myself to breathe, because it's been a hot minute.

I then thank the makers of cooking spray; through them, all things are possible. Place your cake in the fridge for 2 hours to cool before ganaching.

Now you know what an 1/8th cup of chocolate chips looks like.

 The ganache is nice and low cal thanks to cocoa powder and Swerve. To make, dump 1/4 cup of unsweetened cocoa powder and 3/4 cup of Swerve confectioner's sugar into a medium bowl and blend well. Add in 4 tablespoons of milk, and blend slowly. If the mixture is still too thick for glazing, add in more milk until you reach your desired consistency. I ended up using 6 tablespoons of milk. Optional, but a great way to add even more chocolate, is to set aside a few tablespoons of chocolate chips to top your ganache with. You should have a ganache thin enough to drizzle with a spoon, but still thick enough that it sticks to the cake.

Can we take a minute to admire the sheer willpower that removing a perfect bundt cake from a pan requires?

 When you're done patting yourself on the back, take a spoon and drizzle ganache back and forth over the top of your cooled cake.

Mmmm, ganache-y.

Finish up by placing the chocolate chips onto the ganache, and you've got nothing bundt deliciousness on your hands. See what I did there? Yeah, a terrible pun becomes funnier with age. Otherwise, Dad Jokes wouldn't exist. This cake does have cream cheese in it, so keep it in the fridge until you're ready to serve. I highly recommend warming up your slices in the microwave for a few seconds so that fudge layer gets all melty and delicious...

Mmm, fudge.

Filling a cake with fudge might seem like a cop out. I mean, of course it's going to be delicious. All things filled with chocolate are delicious. Even Oreo caught on to that theory. The vanilla cake is a dense sponge cake, so it is mild in sweetness, but paired with the silky chocolate fudge filling it is the perfect amount of decadence, and the ganache topping just takes this to the next level (next, next level could occur with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. I'll try this. For research). I may have taken a blogging absence, but I made it worth the wait. This is quick to make, simpler to decorate, and way too easy to inhale in one sitting (thank goodness it's a health conscious fudge-filled cake. If that's a thing, anyway). I'd also like to mention I made it through an entire blog without complaining about Florida summer. It's here, but this cake is so incredibly good I completely forgot about it. The power of cake. *cue the choir* I promise to be back very soon with some fun summertime desserts that are also capable of making heat and humidity a forgotten nuisance. Dessert--my sanity saver. 'Til next time, my fellow eaters!

Dipping things in chocolate may only temporarily solve a problem, so I recommend multiple servings.