Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Chocolate Streusel-Riboned Bundt cake

This easy and tasty cake comes from the delightful book called "Coffee Cakes" by Lou Seibert Pappas.  It is a smallish book just full of some great recipes, both sweet and savory.  I made a few alterations...

Ingredients

Chocolate Streusel
2 Tbls Cold Butter, cut up
3 Tbls AP Flour
1/3 C Packed Dk Brown Sugar
2 Tbls Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
3/4 C Chopped Pecans

Cake
8 Tbls (1 Stick) Butter, room temperature
3/4 C Sugar
3 Large Eggs, room temperature
2 Teas Vanilla Extract
2 C AP Flour
1 1/4 teas Baking Powder
1/2 Teas Baking Soda
1/4 teas Salt
1 C Sour Cream

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees - now my oven is on the hot side so I set it at 325 and cooked teh cake for about 47 minutes.  Butter and flour a Bundt pan or 10 inch Tube pan - I like my tube pan and it was handier than the Bundt pan.

Make streusel - 

 In a food processor, combine  butter, flour, brown sugar and cocoa powder.  process until crumbly.

I then tossed in the pecans and pulsed the machine a couple of times to chop the nuts.

Now make the batter...  In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add the eggs one at a time beating well after each addition.  Add the vanilla - mix well.  In a smaller separate bowl take the dry ingredients and sift them together, then add these to the butter mixture alternately with the sour cream in two additions.  Blend until smooth.  Put 1/2 the batter into the prepared pan - then take 1/2 of the struesel and sprinkle over the batter.  Spread the remaining batter over this and then top with the second 1/2 of the struesel.

Bake about 40 to 50 minutes checking to see if it is done at about 38 minutes.  When a cake tester comes out clean remove from oven and let cool in the pan for about 15 minutes.  Unmold the cake onto a wire rack to cool completely.  

Cut into slices to serve.