Dark Chocolate Bundt Cake

Dark Chocolate Bundt Cake drizzled with silky chocolate ganache. Simple, moist, flavorful, and absolutely scrumptious! Video.

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Hi friends, this is one of the most delicious desserts I’ve ever had –Dark Chocolate Bundt Cake. Truly!  Make it with love in your heart, and it will be magic.

Is it possible to weave a spell of love into the food we cook?  I’d like to believe so. 😉

Chocolate Bundt Cake | 60-sec Video

Ingredients in Dark Chocolate Bundt Cake

• Cocoa powder
• Coffee
• Orange juice: from oranges or  blood oranges
• Orange liquor (or Kahlua or more orange juice)
• Butter
• Brown sugar and regular organic cane sugar
• all-purpose flour (or fine pastry flour)
• baking soda
• Salt
• Eggs
•  vanilla

• Semi-sweet chocolate chips
• Milk (or half and half)

How to make Dark Chocolate Bundt Cake

Butter the bundt pan well (take your time to do this well), then dust with cocoa powder, knocking out excess.

Heat coffee, orange juice, zest, orange liqueur, vanilla, butter, in a medium saucepan over moderate heat, whisking, until butter is melted, then whisk in a cup of cocoa powder.

Using blood orange juice is a nice option here but if you can’t find them, regular oranges work well too.

Remove from heat, then add both kinds of sugar and whisk until dissolved, about 1 minute. Let cool.

While the chocolate mixture cools, whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl.

 

Whisk together eggs and vanilla in a small bowl, then, temper the eggs by pouring a little of the melted cocoa butter mixture to the eggs, whisking, a tablespoon at a time, to warm them gradually.

This is known as “tempering the eggs” ( so they don’t turn into scrambled eggs).

 

After about 4 tablespoons, pour in the egg mixture into the cooling chocolate mixture and whisk well.

Add the chocolate-egg mixture to the flour mixture and whisk until just combined (batter will be thin and bubbly).

Pour batter into the greased and cocoa-dusted bundt pan and bake until a wooden pick or skewer inserted in the center comes out clean, 40 to 50 minutes.

Cool cake completely in pan on a rack, about 2 hours. Loosen cake from pan using tip of a dinner knife, then invert rack over pan and turn cake out onto rack.

Make the chocolate ganache:

Melt the chocolate chips and milk in a small pot over very low heat. Whisk until combined, then pour over the cake.

Optional: To make the candied blood orange slices – very thinly slice one blood orange.

Place in a pot with one cup water and simmer 20 minutes, until water has reduced to about ¼ cup and orange peel becomes tender. Add in sugar, and stir until dissolved.

Squeeze the juice of the other orange( I used ½) into the mix, and simmer gently for a couple of minutes. Taste, add more sugar if you want. Let this cool. Spoon over the cake after cutting into it, topping with a blood orange slice.

On the homefront: It has been a hard week.  I made this decadent Dark Chocolate Blood Orange Bundt Cake last Saturday, not knowing then how much I would end up needing it in the days to come. The next day, my dad passed away, and piece by piece, this cake has nurtured me all week.

In the end, I loved him. More than I ever thought possible. It took a long time for this to happen, to heal the wounds of childhood, to find forgiveness, and slowly untie the knots in my heart. Our relationship was challenging, the hardest relationship I’ve ever had.

There was a time in my young twenties when I came to the realization, there was no changing this very impossible man, and that I could either choose to love him like he was, or walk away. “But the soul often asks more of us than we plan on giving.”  as James Hollis likes to say.

Something deep inside me knew I needed to stay and figure out how to do this, not for his sake, but for my own, and ultimately for my own deliverance.

And once I made this choice, now almost 30 years ago, it was like the universe stepped in, in its often most comical way, and made sure I followed through.

At every cross-road, circumstances occurred that practically shoved me in the direction of love.

These external circumstances paired with the inner workings of my subconscious, led me down this road of healing, without me being fully aware of it at the time. As I look back now, I see the thread of synchronicity weaving my inner and outer worlds together, and know there is wisdom in the timing of things.

My mother left my father when she was 80 ( an amazing story!) and charged me with his care. My three biggest fears would eventually become realized, that my mom would die, I’d be stuck taking care of my impossible father,  and that I would get a divorce. A perfect storm.

Then, something unexpected happened.  My dad lost his memory. And surprisingly, his ego completely dissolved away and what remained of him was this pure loving presence. He was no longer the man who had to be tip-toed around, his angry side basically evaporated.

At first, it was disturbing, that he couldn’t remember things, which kind of made me angry because I knew he would never again “own” his past, or be sorry for how he treated my mom.  Turns out I was angry about a lot of things. That he lived and my mom died-  of course, I blamed him for that too. Pretty much everything was his fault. 😉

During the next 8 years, I dug up every bone of contention I had with my dad, like I was mining for gold. But every sorrow, every nugget of anger that surfaced was met by his loving presence. He never did say “sorry”, because he had no memory of wrongdoing.  But he knew and remembered me, and met me with love. It was like looking into the face of a child. Innocent.  And surprisingly, each time I saw him, I felt myself slowly letting go of all the pain, bit by bit.  His loving presence was like sunlight, warming and opening my heart.

Today as I write this I feel peace.  I’m sad of course, it feels strange not to have him here. But mostly I feel this huge release like I finally got to the top of Mt. Everest and from here I can finally see the deeper meaning in all of it.

I learned to love him fully (as I could). Flaws and all. I see now how his imperfections were part of a much bigger story- my mother’s story and well as mine. I have never felt so much love pour out of my heart, or so much gratitude, for him. For him being exactly how he was.

I also learned that I can forgive someone, without ever receiving an apology, and that when I do this, it liberates me.  There is huge freedom in this, spaciousness.

Honestly, I feel as if, learning how to love and forgive my father,  has been one of my greatest accomplishments. Perhaps this will resonate with someone out there…

Hope you enjoy this Dark Chocolate Bundt Cake.

Simple, moist, flavorful and absolutely scrumptious!

Sorry for the sad tale….keeping it real.

Love,

Sylvia

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