Cake #8 - Chocolate Sour Cream Bundt Cake with Orange Chocolate Ganache Glaze

Nick and I were home Saturday night, while Jason and Lilah went to see Despicable Me 2.  After a swim in the pool, he and I made this chocolate cake based on what ingredients we had on hand.  For me, learning to bake was a lesson in precision and accuracy.  Learning to bake with my children has been a lesson in patience that I'm still learning.  Part of what I like about baking is that good results come from carefully following the recipe and building up knowledge about how to best perform all the steps.  Basically, baking gratifies the control freak in me.  I've spent the last 7 years trying to relax as my kids flipped flour out of the bowl as they stir, or starting cutting cookies right out of the middle of the rolled out dough.

[The whole rolled sugar cookie thing is a case in point.  As a married woman I never bothered making rolled out cookies at Christmas.  It seemed way too tedious, even as I heartily admired the beautiful cookies in the various Martha Stewart publications.  But then I had kids, and I felt obligated to make Christmas cookies with cookie cutters, so that they could be decorated with globs of frosting and insane amounts of sprinkles.  As anyone who has ever tried to make rolled out sugar cookies knows, it's tricky to get the dough the right thickness, and punch out the shapes, without the dough warming and getting sticky.  Then try to do that with two kids who don't seem to appreciate the need to move with ninja-like speed and intention.  Needless to say, my kids will remember making Christmas cookies as an occasion that caused their mom to bark out orders and swear.]

But Nick and I had a fun time making our chocolate cake together.  We worked together to read the recipe, get the ingredients ready, and follow the directions.  Some flour got flipped out of the bowl.  And Nick almost added a tablespoon of orange extract to the glaze, instead of a teaspoon, but I think we were both pretty relaxed about it.  (It was Nick's idea to add orange flavoring to the glaze, and it was delicious!)  I'm trying to be better, and a cake a week is giving me lots of opportunities to be more calm as my kids help me with something they know I love to do.

Chocolate Sour Cream Bundt Cake

For the cake:

1 cup unsalted butter, plus more for the pan

1/3 cup cocoa powder

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 cup water

2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for the pan

1¾ cups granulated sugar

1½ teaspoons baking soda

2 large eggs

½ cup sour cream (or Greek yogurt)

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

For the chocolate glaze:

4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped

1½ tablespoons corn syrup (or agave nectar)

1 teaspoon orange extract

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

½ cup heavy cream

1½ tablespoons granulated sugar

1.       Position a rack in the center of the oven and heat to 350 degrees. Butter and flour a 10-cup Bundt pan and set aside.

2.       In a small saucepan, combine the butter, cocoa powder, salt, and water and place over medium heat. Cook, stirring, just until melted and combined. Remove from the heat and set aside.

3.       In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, and baking soda. Add half of the melted butter mixture and whisk until completely blended. The mixture will be thick. Add the remaining butter mixture and whisk until combined. Add the eggs, one at a time, whisking until completely blended. Whisk in the sour cream (or Greek yogurt) and the vanilla extract. Whisk until smooth.

4.       Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean, 40 to 45 minutes. Let the cake cool in the pan for 15 minutes and then invert onto a rack. Let cool completely before glazing.

5.       While the cake is cooling, make the chocolate glaze. Place the chopped chocolate and corn syrup (or agave) in a medium bowl and set aside. Combine the heavy cream and sugar in a small saucepan and put over medium heat. Stir until the cream is hot and the sugar is dissolved. Pour the hot cream over the chocolate and whisk until smooth.

6.       Generously drizzle the glaze over the cooled cake, allowing it to drip down the sides. Cut into pieces and serve.

Recipe from Bi-Rite Market's Eat Good Food by Sam Mogannam and Dabny Gough by way of Two Peas & Their Pod (http://www.twopeasandtheirpod.com/chocolate-sour-cream-bundt-cake/)