If I were in a romantic relationship with a cake, it'd be the chocolate bundt cake from the Zingerman's Bakehouse cookbook. This would be awkward, because once you met this cake, you'd want to date it, too. Luckily, cakes are designed to be shared.
In the past I've been interested in fancier chocolate cakes, most of them with lots of frosting and many layers. But they have almost always disappointed. Just as coffee has to live up to its aroma, a layer cake has to taste as good as it looks. But a good-looking chocolate layer cake is often too dry, too sweet, too bland, or swathed with a frosting that's chalky. For one or all of these reasons, it rarely tastes nearly as delicious as it appears.
The Hot Cocoa Cake (the proper name for this cake) avoids this fate by being a bundt cake. You can do various things to dress up a bundt cake—glaze it, use a crazy pan, even throw some flowers on it—but it will never be a special occasion cake. Bundts are plain-spoken, everyday cakes, always and forever. They're born that way. And that's why I'm smitten. I'm tired of cakes that drip or fall or get you drunk. Can a cake just be a cake?
Of course, you have to be careful with simple cakes like this. The absence of frosting means there's nothing for the cake to hide under. Be vigilant in testing the cake for doneness—even one minute too long in the oven will change the cake's character. (I should know—I've made it three times already.) That extra minute won't be a disaster—you'll still eat it—but it will take the cake from insane moistness (pudding-like, honestly) to something a little drier and unremarkable.
Put it this way: when perfectly cooked, you won't need anything on this cake. When overcooked, you'll reach for whipped cream.
There is one expectation that comes with the hot cocoa cake, and that is that it should taste like hot cocoa. Does it? Not really. Instead there's a tang from sour cream, and the very deep chocolate notes you get when you combine coffee and cocoa.
But I think the hot cocoa cake lives up to its name regardless. Eating a slice is soothing in a similar way to sipping a hot drink. Both feel apropos for a snow day; both are as relevant in the morning as they are at night. And if done right, both are much more satisfying than they look.
