Dark Chocolate Bundt Cake with Brown Butter Vanilla Icing

Bundt cakes were the vehicle for my girlhood underage rum consumption. My mom’s technique for her rum Bundt went something like: pour a few glugs of rum into boxed yellow cake batter, bake, drench warm cake with more rum, cut into thick hunks, cover with whipped cream, serve. It was, obviously, delicious. In this case, “Just like mom used to make” is really only true when mom does make it, but that doesn’t mean that the Bundt is sitting on the sidelines of my kitchen. While once naught but a booze chute, the Bundt is today one of my favorite baking blank checks—a fun way to innovate and always nab a winner.

In the U.S., the Bundt first rose to popularity in the mid ‘60s after Ella Rita Helfrich used the then-obscure mold to win second place in the Pillsbury Busy Lady Bake-Off. Oozing with a gooey, chocolaty center—thanks to the addition of prepackaged Pillsbury fudge that sunk into the cake’s middle during baking—Helfrich’s “Tunnel of Fudge” cake was a national sensation that ignited a countrywide Bundt cake trend, but it had taken the pan a long time to ascend the kitchen ranks.

Derived from the beloved German Kugelhopf—an airy tunnel cake much in the way of brioche—the American Bundt pan had been in circulation in the U.S. since the early 1950s, but it remained largely anonymous until its 1966 moment in the sun. More than a decade prior, at the behest of his neighbors seeking to recreate their favorite childhood German coffee cake, budding entrepreneur H. David Dalquist had set about reinterpreting the heavy German Kugelhopf mold into the curved, aluminum pan we know today. In collaboration with his wife, Dorothy, Dalquist perfected his creation and dubbed it the Bundt, derived from “Bundkuchen,” or what the almighty Kugelhopf was known as in Northern Germany; “Bund,” the German word for “bundle,” refers to how the cake batter bundles around the hole in the center of the pan.

While the pan took its sweet time getting popular, it became so intensely well known after Helfrich’s success that it was eventually inducted into the Smithsonian as a hallmark of American food technology. And to this day, Nordic Ware—Dalquist’s Minnesota-based company that owns the Bundt trademark—has sold more than 60 million of its signature pans.

Even so, to many the Bundt might seem like a relic that’s too retro to be good—more in the way of bridge luncheons and church potlucks; people used the pan to bake meatloaf and serve potato salad, after all. But the Bundt cake itself is tough to argue with: easy elegance, crisped edges, tender guts, pretty much always makeable by hand instead of mixer, and it’s as suited to a thick icing as to a dusting of powdered sugar or a swath of salted butter. Versatile, in other words. The Bundt is even undergoing a bit of a revival these days, thanks to the efforts of folks like Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito, the creative gentlemen behind Baked NYC and the classic National Baking Society. From their famous root beer Bundt to the modified Mary Todd Lincoln cake, Lewis and Poliafito are showing us that the Bundt is just as enduring of a canvas as any—trendy without being a novelty, and certainly not stodgy. And one of the best parts? Eating a slice from hand is totally permissible and satisfying, be it brown-butter-frosted, rum-soaked, or otherwise. Just don’t tell my mom. 

Bundt cakes, previously: old-fashioned gingerbread, applesauce with caramel glaze, maple chocolate stout, and carrot-date with cream cheese icing.

Dark Chocolate Bundt Cake

Adapted from the National Baking Society

According to my numba-one critic/fan, this cake taste like a "fancy Oreo"—he's basically right. Deeply chocolaty, the cake is super tender and yum, with a hyper-vanilla frosting that gets extra oomph from the brown butter. It's just the ticket for giving the Bundt cake its proper due.

2 ounces dark chocolate, chopped

2 teaspoons super finely ground coffee

3/4 cup boiling water

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup dark brown sugar, packed

1 3/4 cups flour

3/4 cup cocoa powder, non-Dutch preferred

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

3/4 teaspoon fine-grain sea salt

1 cup buttermilk (or 1 cup whole milk mixed with 1 tablespoon white vinegar)

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup safflower oil

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a ten-cup Bundt pan with some butter and dust with cocoa powder (in place of flour! This prevents the dark chocolate cake from having white streaks on the exterior once baked).

2. Put chocolate and coffee granules in a heatproof bowl, add boiling water. Let stand for two minutes, then whisk until chocolate is melted and mixture is uniform. Set aside. In a medium bowl, whisk both sugars in a medium bowl. Sift flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt over the sugars. Stir mixture to combine, making sure that brown sugar doesn’t end up clumping.

3. Using a whisk and large bowl, mix buttermilk, eggs, extract, oil, and melted chocolate until combined. Add the dry ingredients in two parts and mix until each part is incorporated. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl and whisk briskly by hand for about three minutes, until batter is somewhat airy and totally uniform. Pour into the prepared pan and bake for 40 to 50 minutes, or until cake tester inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean (mine was finished at exactly 45). Cool for 15 minutes then invert onto wire rack. Cool completely before icing.

Brown Butter Vanilla Icing

4 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

4 to 5 tablespoons milk

2 cups powdered sugar, sifted

Generous pinch of salt

1. In a medium saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat until foamy. Stir every now and then for about five minutes until butter turns brown and smells nutty. You can let this get really dark if you want, but a sort of toasted brown will bring out a nice flavor. Remove butter from heat, add vanilla extract, sugar, and salt, and whisk until smooth. Whisk in the milk a few tablespoons at a time, until it’s a thick, but pourable consistency. If needed, add more milk one tablespoon at a time.

2. Set cake on a stand or on a rack over wax paper, and pour icing along the top, allowing it to flow down evenly. If it’s super thick, you might need to use a knife or spatula to nudge it down the sides a bit. Cake will keep, covered, for several days.