Chocolate Chip Pound Cake

My baking itch came back in less than a week after my previous bake. That simply means it's a tad too soon. It was a good thing that I've taken half a day off from work to accompany dad and mom for a nice japanese lunch. Thereafter, we headed to do some brief grocery shopping. It was there that I saw bars of cooking chocolate stacked nicely on the shelf  and instantly,  it sprang to my mind of a recipe that I've wanted to try couple of months back but never got around to do it. There is still a huge solid bar of imported cooking chocolate tucked somewhere in my fridge which I could jolly well use it for this recipe. The original recipe (Donna Hay magazine) asked for normal round pans but the recipe I found from Patricia's website uses bundt pan. I may have more than 15 types of pans in my larder but none of them are bundt pans though. It would look cute and dainty in mini bundt pans but since I have none, I substituted it with the mould I use to make mango pudding. And yes, it looked cute to me. Mom was suggesting that if I insist to have the 'bundt pan' look, she will help me to drill a hole in the centre of the cake with a fat straw :)  Yeaa..... right....

Ingredients :

Cake:

250g unsalted butter, softened

250g caster sugar (I reduced to 180g)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 eggs
250g all purpose flour, sifted
¼ cup (60ml) milk
¾ cup (116g) chopped dark chocolate

Chocolate glaze:
2 tablespoons cocoa powder, sifted
3 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, room temperature
1 ½ tablespoons milk

Method :
Preheat the oven to 160ºC. Lightly grease a 20cm (8in) round cake pan and line the base and sides with non-stick baking paper. ( I substituted with 4 mango mould tin)

Place the butter, sugar and vanilla in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat for 10-12 minutes or until light and creamy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the flour and beat well to combine. Fold through the milk and chocolate.

Spoon the mixture into the prepared pan and bake for 50-55 minutes or until cooked when tested with a skewer. Allow to cool in the pan, then unmold into a serving plate. (I baked  for 40 - 45 mins)

   

For the glaze: mix all the ingredients in a small saucepan and cook over high medium until it boils and cocoa and sugar are dissolved.

Remove from heat and pour over the cake.

 My cooking tips : If you use any other pans of different size and is unsure of baking time, always set the time at a slightly lower duration. When the time is up, check the cake and decide whether you should increase your baking time. Example: this recipe suggested 50 -55 mins . I set my oven to 30 mins. The cake was not fully cooked and I added an additonal 10 mins baking time.