Christmas Kitchen: Chocolate Truffle Bundt Cake

This post was created in collaboration with Guylian chocolate. Okay, so it is time for this years Christmas showstopper. A stupidly simple, sliceable, sharable cake with an easy, elegant yet impressive decoration which can serve 12-14, but also keeps beautifully for 4-5 days or so, so it is just as suitable for a family of 4-6 to enjoy over a couple of days. Meet my Chocolate Truffle Bundt cake.

Here, moist chocolate sponge is topped with a thick, cognac or Irish cream spiked cream glaze (it is up to you, if you’re more of a brandy butter or Irish whisky cream person, though you can also use vanilla extract if you’d rather go booze free), edible gold leaf, rice paper stars and delicious, indulgent Guylian seashell praline truffles as the perfect festive finishing touch (is it just me who sees a box of Guylian as a Christmas essential?)

How To Grease A Bundt Pan
How To Stop A Bundt Cake Sticking

Now, I know I don’t usually include process shots in my posts (I never find them that useful) but today I have, because I want to share a few tips for bundt cake success. If I can get my cake perfectly out of my elaborately swirled, deeply grooved tin every time, so can you!

The first tip I have for getting your bundt out is to grease it very well. Use margarine for this, and not just because it is what I’ve used in place of butter in this sponge; pure butter can sometimes act more like glue heated to a high temperature, where the oil content in margarine will be your friend here! Just oil won’t stick, and margarine has less nasties in it than cooking spray. Use a piece of kitchen paper, and make sure you get right in the grooves. Then, the same way you would a cake tin where you can’t get baking parchment into all the corners, dust the tin. Flour for a white sponge, cocoa powder for a chocolate one. Make sure you use a sieve so there are not any lumps, and tap away any excess over the kitchen sink.

Next, is something important to keep in mind when removing the bundt from the tin. First, get a good one. I know usually I am an advocate that cheap tins and things are as good as expensive, but a thin tin without a proper non-stick coating simply will raise the chances of a broken bundt, here.

Second, read the instructions. I’m saying this, because I often don’t, and then I pay for it later! You need to wait 10 minutes, but not any longer before turning out your bundt to cool. As it cools, it will stick to the tin. Any less, you’ll burn your fingers and the cake will have too much steam in it, and still might break or stick.

Chocolate Truffle Bundt Cake
Guylian Seashell Truffles

You can of course choose whatever embellishments you want, but I think gold in particular looks lovely and striking alongside the marbled blend of dark, milk and while chocolate in Guylian shells. Just make sure you do get edible gold leaf (this is actually imitation gold leaf as it behaves the same and is a lot cheaper!) as some of the sheets sold online for cosmetic use is not food safe.

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Chocolate Truffle Bundt Cake

  • Author: Rachel Phipps
  • Prep Time: 25 minutes
  • Cook Time: 50 minutes
  • Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes
  • Yield: Serves 1214 1x
  • Category: Christmas
  • Diet: Vegetarian

Description

A simple, moist chocolate bundt cake decorated with a boozy cream icing and Guylian chocolate praline seashell truffles – the perfect showstopper cake to serve this Christmas.


Ingredients

Scale

For the Chocolate Bundt Cake

  • 65g cocoa powder, sifted, plus extra for dusting
  • 120ml boiling water
  • 4 large eggs
  • 160ml milk
  • 230g self raising flour
  • 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 130g margarine, plus extra for greasing
  • 360g golden caster sugar
  • pinch salt
  • 810 Guylian seashell truffles, plus extra to decorate the cake plate around the bottom
  • 3 squares edible gold leaf
  • tiny gold rice paper stars

For the Boozy Cream Icing

  • 150g icing sugar, sifted
  • 4 tbsp double cream
  • 1 tsp cognac, Irish cream (or vanilla extract to keep things booze free!)

Instructions

  1. Pre-heat the oven to 160 degrees. 
  2. Place the cocoa powder and the boiling water into the bowl of your stand mixer and beat until it has formed a thick paste, scraping down the sides if necessary.
  3. Add the rest of the ingredients for the sponge to the bowl and beat until the mixture is uniform, again, making sure to scrape down the sides well with a spatula.
  4. Grease your bundt tin well with a piece of kitchen paper and a little more margarine, before dusting the tin with sieved cocoa powder. Tap out the excess over the kitchen sink.
  5. Pour the cake mixture into the tin, tapping it firmly a couple of times on the worktop to knock out any big air bubbles. Bake for 50-55 minutes until the sponge is cooked through and is starting to come away a little from the outside of the tin. Use a cake tester or a wooden skewer to check for doneness – it should come away clean.
  6. Leave the cake to stand in the tin on a wire cooling rack for 10 minutes. Then, use a blunt eating knife to prise the sponge away from the middle hole if necessary before turning the cake out onto the cooling rack. Allow to cool completely.
  7. To make the icing stir together the icing sugar, double cream and your choice of alcohol or vanilla extract until you have a smooth glaze. Drizzle this over the top of your bundt. If your tin produces a rounded bundt you’ll want to work right around the top and let the icing drip naturally over the sides. If you have a spiral tin like mine, drop spoonfuls of the icing near the top of each groove so it runs down each line both on the outside and down the middle of the cake. I like to put a cutting board under the cooling wrack to stop icing flowing all over the worktop.
  8. Decorate the top of the cake with a ring of Guylian seashells (I like to alternate between the milk and white chocolate shells, and the dark and white chocolate shells) or place one in each groove. Use tweezers to tear off little pieces of the gold leaf and stick them to the icing around the shells (the gold leaf will stick to your fingers) and sprinkle the finished cake with a dusting of stars.
  9. Allow the icing to harden for an hour before transferring the cake to a cake stand or serving plate.

Notes

Keep the cake in an airtight tin or under kitchen wrap overnight.

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