Tunnel of Fudge Bundt Cake

•  Decadent

Isn't it ironic?  Last night my husband was reading a new book I bought, "Bottom Line's Healthy Heart, The Breakthrough Program to Prevent, Halt and Even Reverse Heart Disease", and after only one chapter requested I make a chocolate cake!  Reading all the things he needed to cut from his diet made him crave chocolate sweets.  I am always up for cooking so I searched my recipe's and decided to make as old favorite I hadn't made in years. 

Why did I stop making a fovorite recipe?  Well I couldn't find the ingredients.  Betty Crocker used to make a powered chocolate fudge icing mix and then stopped!  The icing mix was a key ingredient and I could not find it.  On the internet, Betty Crocker admitted they stopped making the icing mix and many people had requested it, so they came up with a substitute recipe for The Tunnel of Fudge Cake.  It was a flop!  I just wrote off the cake, but kept looking for powdered icing mix as I went on with life and baking.  Recently, I moved to San Antonio and the closest organic store to me is Sun Harvest and they carry a chocolate powdered icing mix made by Cherrybrook Kitchen.  Ironic isn't it?  About the time you give up on something you loved, it comes right back into your life.  So the moral of this story is:  Be happy, be healthy, never give up and eat more chocolate!


Tunnel of Fudge Bundt Cake

1 1/2 cups unsalted butter (3 sticks) room temperature

6 large eggs
1 1/2 cups flour (not sifted)
1 cup sugar
1 package Cherrybrook Kitchen chocolate frosting mix
1 teaspoon vanilla
 1/4 teaspoon salt
Mix butter, sugar and vanilla until creamy approximately 2 min. with stand mixer. mix in sugar and frosting mix and beat about 1 minute, add flour and mix well as slow speed until flour is not visable.  Bake at 350 degree oven for 1 hour in a greased and floured bundt pan.  Cool 2 hours on rack in pan, flip onto serving dish and ice with Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting.

Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting 

1 package (3 ounces) cream cheese, softened to room temperature
2 tablespoon heavy wipping cream
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups confectioners sugar
2 squares (o ounce each) unsweetened baking chocolate, melted and cooled

In a small bowl with an electric mixer, beat cream cheese, milk and vanilla until smooth.  Add confectioners' sugar and continue beating until frosting is smooth.  Add melted chocolate; mix well.  If necessary, add a little more cream until frosting is of spreading consistency.  Frost cooled cake.

Mothers Cinnamon-Pecan Coffecake

Comfort Food







As cold-fronts push their way down into Central Texas, the weather becomes very heavy.  The South doesn't have the pleasure of a brisk, invigorating fall just gray skies and lots of rain.  Of course, after a long drought the rain is welcome by all, especially Mother Nature.  She is very busy spreading pollen everywhere and in great abundance.  Thus an epidemic of seasonal allergies.


Seasonal allergies, depression and just plain going crazy from being indoors.  How do you fight Mother Nature?  You try lots of vitamin C, lots of fluids, and the dreaded allergy medications. Medicine does go down easier with a teaspoon of sugar, but sugar doesn't do a thing for the side effects.



I hate medication of any kind.  I seem to always have additional symptoms on top of the allergy symptoms, caused by the medication's side effects.  I went out to my grandsons soccer practice yesterday afternoon; big mistake.  I ended up sneezing and hacking my way home to a hot shower.  Central Texas weather in the fall is:  90 degrees, very humid, and lots of pollen, mold spores and mildew!  How do you fight Mother Nature?  Bake a cake!


I chose to bake, "Mother's Cinnamon-Pecan Coffee Cake".  While preparing this wonderful soul fulfilling coffee cake I listened to, "Frank Sinatra, Christmas Carols", while drinking Chia tea with a cinnamon stick.  I felt much better.


Mothers Cinnamon-Pecan Coffeecake
from "Southern Cakes" by Nancy McDermott

Cinnamon-Raisin Filling

1 1/2 cups light brown sugar (packed)
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons ground cinnamon
1 1/2 cups golden raisins
1 1/2 cups coarsely chopped pecans
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter, melted


Coffee Cake
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup milk
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs



Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F, and grease and flour a 13" by 9" pan.


For the filling, in a medium bowl, combine the light brown sugar, flour, and cinnamon and stir with a fork to mix everything well.  In a second bowl, combine the raisins and pecans in another bowl and toss to mix them.  In a third bowl, microwave the butter until melted.  Set all three bowls aside.


For the coffee cake batter, combine the flour, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl, and stir with a fork to mix them together well.  Stir the vanilla into the milk.  In a large bowl, combine the butter and the sugar, and beat with a mixer at high speed, stopping to scrape down the bowl, until pale yellow and evenly mixed, about 2 minutes.  Add the eggs and beat for another 2 minutes, scraping down the bowl now and then, until the mixture is smooth and light.


Using a Large spoon or a spatula, add about a third of the flour mixture to the butter mixture, and stir only until the flour disappears.  Add about a third of the milk and mix it in.  Repeat two more timers with the remaining flour and milk, stirring just enough each time to keep the batter smooth.


Spread half the batter evenly over the bottom of the prepared pan.  Sprinkle half the cinnamon mixture over the batter, followed by half the melted butter.  Scatter half the raisins and nuts over the batter.  Spread the remaining batter all the way to the edges of the pan.  Top with the remaining cinnamon mixture, butter, and nut mixture, covering the cake evenly.


Bake at 350 degrees for 45 to 50 minutes, until the cake is golden brown, fragrant, and beginning to pull away from the sides of the pan.  Cool the cake in the pan for 10 minutes on a wire rack . and then serve in squares right from the pan.  The cake is delicious hot, warm, or at room temperature.  You can reheat individual servings for approximately 10 seconds in your microwave.  Note:  if the raisins and nuts begin to get too brown, you can cover you pan with a foil tent the last 15 to 20 minutes of baking.