Chocolate Bundt Cake with Chocolate Glaze

This is the best chocolate bundt cake ever! It’s got rich chocolate flavour and a fluffy, moist texture. It easily transforms into a chocolate lover’s dream dessert with a simple chocolate glaze or decadent ganache to satisfy any chocolate craving.

I’ve been craving for a dark chocolate bundt cake for some time now, not least because I’m utterly addicted to all things chocolate, obsessed with bundt cakes, and weirdly fascinated by bundt pans.

Don’t mind my saying, but I think chocolate is the universal flavour of love! And speaking of love, this deliciously moist chocolate cake is perfect for special occasions like birthdays, anniversaries, Valentine’s, and the holidays.

this recipe

It’s so easy to turn this chocolate cake into a stunning, decadent dessert. Even without a bundt pan, you can bake the cake batter in regular cake pans and make a beautiful chocolate layer cake. Fill and frost with a classic chocolate buttercream, decorate with fresh berries, and voila! You’ve got a show stopper!

But if you’re out to please chocolate lovers, make this chocolate bundt cake the ultimate chocolate treat by drizzling generously with chocolate glaze or a decadent ganache, and topping with a glorious head of chocolate shavings. You will be loved for it!

Why this recipe works

• Buttermilk. Buttermilk is the secret ingredient that makes this chocolate cake moist! Its acidity chemically reacts with baking soda, producing carbon dioxide which helps the cake rise, thus creating a light and fluffy crumb.

• Buttery. Many chocolate cake recipes use oil to moisten the cake, but this recipe uses 100% butter. Although butter has a lower fat content than oil, it more than makes up for it with its richer and creamier flavour.

• Ultra chocolate-y. This cake gets its rich chocolate flavor from “bloomed” cocoa. Basically, blooming is a process of mixing cocoa in a heated liquid like hot water, milk, coffee or even melted fat, allowing the cocoa solids to release their flavor.

But first.. let’s talk bundt pan

As good and reliable as this chocolate cake recipe is, prepping a bundt cake pan for a bake is just as important. It can make or break the cake, literally!

I can’t begin to tell you how often I’ve littered my kitchen floor with broken pieces of cake. All because I didn’t take the time or make the effort to correctly and properly grease a bundt cake pan.

It’s a scenario all too familiar. You’ve followed the recipe to a ‘T’, executed the instructions precisely, and the moment’s arrived to flip the cake out of the bundt pan. Easy peasy, right? Except to your horror, it’s firmly stuck!

Before you know it, you’re scraping the crust desperately off the sides, shaking the pan like a rag doll, uttering expletives as fast and furious as they come.

So, to prevent this from happening, I’ve got a few essential tips:

• Use fat and flour. Even if you have a non-stick bundt pan, it’s often not enough to simply grease the pan. You’ll want to create an additional non-stick layer between the pan and the batter by coating the grease with flour, granulated sugar, or cocoa powder (when baking dark-coloured cake batters).
• The fat matters. Use a non-stick cooking spray, shortening, or softened butter. Melted butter or oil does a good job of getting into small nooks and crannies, but they tend to settle at the bottom of the pan if left to sit for a while. Alternatively, you can make a super easy and effective quick-release paste from scratch.
• Grease just before you fill the pan. When you use fats like melted butter and oil, the best time to grease (and flour) the pan is just before filling it with the cake batter.

How to properly grease a bundt pan

• Coat the pan with fat. Using a pastry brush, brush a generous amount of fat down the sides, base, and into the grooves, especially in bundt pans with a lot of detail. Don’t forget to grease around the funnel too.
• Add the flour. Sprinkle 3 – 4 tablespoons of flour all around the insides of the pan, the base, and the funnel.
• Coat the fat with flour. Cover the pan with plastic wrap, making sure it’s secure. Shake the pan a few times vigorously! You’ll want every inch of the grease thoroughly coated with flour.
• Tap out the excess. Invert the bundt pan with the plastic wrap over a kitchen sink. Remove the wrap and tap out the excess.

Main ingredients to make chocolate bundt cake

• plain or all purpose flour. For best results, use regular plain flour. Flour is a building block and provides structure in baked goods.
• baking soda. Leavens the cake by chemically reacting with buttermilk and cocoa (acidic ingredients) to help the cake rise. Also, baking soda helps create a tender crumb.
• salt. Accentuates the flavor of the cake.
• unsalted butter. Imparts a buttery taste and moistens the cake. Skip the salt if using salted butter.
• caster sugar. Creates tiny air pockets as it cuts through the butter, making it light and fluffy. You can use regular white sugar. Also, you don’t need brown sugar in this recipe because the buttermilk adds that much moisture.
• large eggs. Adds flavor, binds ingredients together and builds structure in the cake.
• buttermilk. A key ingredient, buttermilk is what makes this chocolate cake extra moist and contributes to a light and fluffy crumb.
• natural cocoa powder (not Dutch-processed). Gives the cake it’s rich chocolate flavor. Use regular unsweetened cocoa powder like Hershey’s.
• instant coffee granules (optional). A pinch accentuates the chocolate flavour, and you won’t even taste the coffee.
• vanilla extract. Adds warmth and aroma. Can be replaced with butterscotch or almond extract, rum or brandy.
• semi-sweet chocolate chips. Creates an easy mix-and-stir glaze with softened butter.
• chocolate curls or shavings (optional). Use as a topping over the chocolate glaze.

Equipment

• electric mixer (a stand mixer or handheld beaters)
• 10- or 12-cup bundt cake pan (I used this one)
• pastry brush
• rubber spatula
• cooling rack

Key steps in this chocolate bundt cake recipe

Prep

• Preheat the oven to 175°C (350°F). Set the mode to top and bottom heating with a rack placed in the middle of the oven.

• Properly grease the bundt pan. Grease a 10- or 12-cup bundt pan. Make sure you get the grease into every nook and cranny, especially if your bundt pan has intricate grooves. Sprinkle flour until it thoroughly coats the grease and tap out the excess.

• Let butter come to room temperature, ideally between 18 – 19°C (64.4 – 66.2°F). This is key to successful creaming to ensure the best possible aeration. If you press the butter with your finger, it should make a slight indent without leaving an oily feel.

• Bring cold ingredients to room temperature. Pull out cold ingredients like buttermilk, eggs, and butter from the chiller at least 30 minutes beforehand.

Make the chocolate cake

The following snapshots will show you what the batter should look like as you go through the recipe steps. Please refer to the chocolate bundt cake recipe card at the end of the post for detailed instructions.

1 – Butter mixture. In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar at medium speed until light and fluffy – this could take several minutes. Make sure you scrape down the sides of the bowl once or twice to get all of the butter evenly creamed.

2 – Wet ingredients. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. At first, the mixture will curdle, but continue beating until the mixture smoothens out before adding the next egg.

3 – Dry ingredients. Sift the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda and salt). Reduce to low speed on the mixer. Add the flour mixture in 3 lots alternately with the buttermilk, starting and ending with the flour mixture. Be careful not to over beat.

4 – Beat just enough to get the batter smooth and creamy after adding each lot of the flour and buttermilk, about 10 to 15 seconds for each addition.

5 – Bloom the cocoa. In a small bowl, add boiling water to the cocoa and stir the mixture until it’s smooth and free of lumps. Let the cocoa mixture sit for 1 – 2 minutes to cool a bit before adding to the batter.

6 – Add cocoa mixture. Keeping the mixer at a low speed, beat in the cocoa mixture and vanilla extract. Make sure the cocoa is well incorporated and batter is at the same consistency throughout.

7 – Fill the bundt pan. Pour the batter into the bundt pan. It should not fill more than 3/4 of the pan. If for some reason you’ve got leftover chocolate batter, bake the remaining batter in muffin or cupcake moulds.

8 – Bake for 50 to 55 minutes until the cake tests done. Use a toothpick, bamboo skewer or a cake tester and insert it into the centre of the cake. If it comes out clean or with a few crumbs sticking to it, the cake is done. If it comes out coated with wet or raw batter, add a few more minutes to the baking time and check again for doneness.

Release and cool the cake

Take the pan out of the oven and let the cake cool in the pan for at least 15 minutes. Before inverting the cake, use an offset spatula to gently nudge the cake loose from the sides of the pan.

Place a wire rack over the top of the pan. Holding both the rack and pan firmly together, flip the bundt pan over. Then gently lift the pan and check to see if the cake is coming loose.

If the cake is still sticking to the pan in places, flip back the pan and wire rack. Again, use an offset spatula to loosen the sticky spots before flipping over again to release the cake.

Patience is key here. Basically, we want the cake smoothly out of the pan and in one piece. Let the cake cool completely before drizzling with chocolate glaze or ganache.

Make the chocolate glaze

This is the easiest 5-minute chocolate glaze you can make (thanks to Baker Bettie)! And you only need 2 ingredients – chocolate chips and butter – and a microwave oven.

Place the chocolate chips in a small bowl (heatproof) and set the microwave oven timer to 2 minutes.

Do short bursts of 15- to 20 seconds on a high power setting. Stir the chips each time you stop. Initially, they will remain solid but stirring helps to distribute the heat evenly.

As soon as most of the chips have completely melted save for a few solid ones, remove from the microwave. All in all, you may not need the full 2 minutes.

Next, add the butter while the chocolate is still warm. You’ll need the heat from the chocolate to melt it.

When the cake is completely cooled, drizzle the chocolate glaze over the top of the cake and down the fluted sides as desired.

Frequently asked questions

Easy chocolate bundt cake recipe

You don’t have to go back to any cake mix ever again! This is the best chocolate bundt cake recipe that always turns out a moist chocolate bundt cake.

The next time you’re baking the dessert for a birthday party, a community bake sale, or a potluck, make this decadent chocolate cake, you can’t go wrong!

If you tried this chocolate bundt cake recipe, don’t forget to rate or leave a review, I’d love to know how you got on!

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