Bundt Cake

A few ingredients ensure an ultra-moist cake. The actual cake mix used is very important to getting a moist cake. I recommend Betty Crocker’s Super Moist® cake mixes (not sponsored). I’ve found these cake mixes to yield moist and flavorful cakes.

The pudding mix adds so much moisture to the cake. It also contributes to the fluffy texture.

Sour cream and oil are two other ingredients that make a cake extra moist; I recommend a good full-fat sour cream for these Bundt cakes.

Other flavors ideas

Lemon cake with a lemon buttercream frosting

Carrot: Follow the chocolate cake recipe with the following changes: replace the chocolate cake mix with a Super Moist Carrot cake mix and replace the pudding mix with a vanilla pudding mix. Add in 1 cup grated carrots. Omit chocolate chips.

Pumpkin: Follow the chocolate cake recipe with the following changes: replace the chocolate cake mix with a Super Moist Spice cake mix and replace the pudding mix with a 4-ounce pumpkin spice instant pudding mix. Leave in chocolate chips if desired (we like them in!).

Cookies and cream: Follow the chocolate cake recipe with the following changes: reduce the miniature chocolate chips to 1 cup. Add 10-12 coarsely chopped Oreos into the cake. Add another 5-7 coarsely chopped Oreos to sprinkle over the frosting.

Red velvet: Follow the chocolate cake recipe with the following changes: replace the chocolate cake mix with a Super Moist Red Velvet cake mix and replace the pudding mix with a vanilla pudding mix. Reduce the chocolate chip addition to 1 cup.

Variation ideas

Use a different frosting or glaze.

Top with whipped cream and fresh berries instead of frosting (how to make whipped cream tutorial).

Decorate the cake for a specific holiday or event:

• Add Lucky Charms® marshmallows to decorate for St. Patrick’s Day.
• Use red, white, and blue frosting to decorate for the 4th of July.
• Color-specific sprinkles for a birthday or holiday.

Add a garnish on top of the frosting such as crushed dried raspberries or strawberries, crushed peppermint, or sugared cranberries.

Fill the center opening with decorations (edible or not) such as tissue paper flowers, real edible flowers, edible Christmas tree pine cones. 

Bundt cake success secrets 

Don’t overmix the batter. Overmixing the batter activates the gluten in flour (great for bread and rolls, but not so much for cakes and cupcakes!) which will result in a denser cake as opposed to a light and airy cake.

Use room temperature eggs: This ensures the eggs disperse more evenly into the batter, giving these cookies a lighter texture (the eggs trap air). Soaking refrigerated eggs in a bowl of warm (not hot) water for about 10 minutes is a quick way to achieve this. Otherwise, pull the eggs out of the refrigerator about 30 minutes before use.

For the raspberry-vanilla cake, be sure to use a seedless jam. Seeds detract from the texture of the cake. And if you aren’t a raspberry fan, any jam works here — strawberry, cherry, grape etc. Just make sure it’s seedless!

Allow the cake to cool completely before frosting: Otherwise, the frosting will melt a bit and droop.

How to get your cake out of the Bundt pan every time

If you don’t have a good Bundt pan, here’s a list of the top-rated pans.

Grease and flour the Bundt pan: Nothing is worse than inverting your cake to find some of it has stuck to the sides. I recommend spraying the sides very generously with nonstick spray or rubbing shortening (or softened butter) over the pan. To rub shortening or butter over the pan: Put your hand in a plastic zip-top bag (or paper towel), dip it in shortening, rub it over the pan (every nook and cranny), and then discard the bag. The better you grease the pan, the better it will come out. Once the pan is covered in a layer of grease, sprinkle some flour over the inside. Shake the flour around and tap the excess out over the sink. Make sure all of the grease is covered with a very light dusting of flour (for the chocolate cake, you can lightly dust with cocoa powder to keep the color brown).

When to invert the cake: As the cake cools, it will slowly start to release itself from the sides of the pan. Give the cake about 10-15 minutes to rest before inverting it onto a platter, plate, or cake stand. When it is flipped over, the cake will pull away from the pan on fall down onto the cake stand.

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