Bundt?

In the movie, "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" there is a scene where the engaged couple's parents meet. They are about as different as night and day. The groom's mousy mother brings a bundt cake and as the Greek mother walks away with it, she suspiciously looks at it before loudly announcing: "It's a cake! I know! Thank you! Thank you very, very much." Then she whispers to Aunt Freida "There's a hole in this cake!"

A couple months ago, Mom had come up to visit to help me ready the girl's room, and in the midst of her visit, we inevitably went garage sale-ing. It's what we do.

At one of our stops I found a bundt pan. Grandma and our friend Nancy always turned out delicious bundt cakes, so after reasoning I had cabinet space for such a device, I joined the ranks of bundt-cake-making-ladies. (Say THAT 3 times fast!)

Not ever having made a bundt cake before, I did what any modern housewife does with most anything...I Googled it. "How to make a bundt cake." As with anything, there were a plethora of posts, opinions and ways to make this kind of cake, but I believe I've now figured out my own style.

Our church has a potluck after service every Sunday so when it came time to prepare something to take, my decision was obvious. BUNDT CAKE, BABY! I mixed up my ingredients and it seemed to be such a hit dessert at lunch that I made one the following week...and the week after that. I made different flavors each time, but started getting teased a bit for my predictability. ;) Last night our pastor's family hosted a party at their home and not having done any baking in the last month I knew exactly what I wanted to take. We arrived after everyone had eaten, but it still didn't take long for the belated cake to disappear.

Since I am such a generous person I'll share my secret to a delicious chocolate bundt cake. First you have to harvest cocoa beans at exactly 75* and slow roast them for 2 hours before grinding them to add to your cake batter. Next, you gather the wheat from your local wheat field. You must be wearing wheat gathering clothing or else it doesn't count for your Proverbs 31 woman medal at the end of all this. Once this is done...

Okay. I can't keep this up any longer.

So really, all I do is throw together a chocolate cake batter in with a box of instant chocolate pudding and a generous handful of chocolate chips, pour it in my lovely greased bundt pan, and bake it for 45ish minutes. When the cake is cooled I run a non-stick spatula around the edges to separate the cake and plop it on my cake plate. For the icing I mix together 1/2 a stick of softened butter, 2 tablespoons of chocolate powder, a few tablespoons of powdered sugar and a teaspoon or two of water. Whip this together until it's smooth and drizzle it over the top. That's it. It's so easy and so incredibly delicious that I'm almost embarrassed that I didn't harvest the cocoa beans at 75*.