Cake #29: The best chocolate bundt cake ever

Despite my tragic history with chocolate bundt cakes, I decided to give it another go before the end of 2013. My reasons were twofold: 1) David gave me a beautiful new bundt pan for Christmas, and 2) Joy the Baker has a recipe that she claimed was the best ever. I love pretty food and I trust JtB, so off I went.

(Based on the above picture, you might have an idea of where this is going.)

Evidently my pan and JtB's pan are not the same size. Mine is smaller. Much smaller. And when I saw that the amount of cake batter in the pan seemed a leeetle much, I foolishly did not do anything about it.

Oh Jen, you foolish thing you. You know better.

As the cake baked, it overflowed. Right through the hole in the middle, right down onto the bottom of the oven. My kitchen quickly filled with the loveliest chocolatey smoke smell.

In case you have forgotten my oven woes, let me remind you. The door fell off almost a year ago. David, being David, was able to fix it, but instead of opening all the way and staying open, it now snaps shut like a burny mousetrap. You have to hold it open with one hand while carefully trying to pull out whatever is inside without letting it simultaneously sever and scorch your limbs. Madame le Guillotine aint got nothin' on my oven. And we've been coexisting for nearly a year. Le sigh.

So picture me, bracing the door open with one hand while gingerly scraping crispy drippings of cake off red hot oven coils, because I didn't want to set my kitchen aflame but also didn't want to turn off the oven because my cake still had like 20 minutes to go. It was a precarious situation, let me assure you.

But. The cake finished baking without burning the house down. I thought I was in the clear.

Then I let David dump it out of the pan before it was completely cool. Rookie mistake. Chunks stuck to the pan, of course, and it wasn't nearly as pretty as I hoped it would be. When the glaze/frosting turned out much thicker than I anticipated, I just threw my hands in the air and went with it. There was no salvaging this cake's looks by now anyway.

Behold, the poovalanche!

It really is the best chocolate bundt cake ever, as JtB claims. Moist and rich and decadent. It just isn't very pretty. Are you surprised?

In other news, I'll be getting a new oven soon.

(You can find the recipe for this cake here. Be mindful of the amount of batter it makes, though. If your pan is on the smaller size--as it turns out mine is--make a handful of cupcakes with the extra. And maybe put a pan under your bundt pan to catch any overflow. Just in case.)