Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Mocha-Walnut Marbled Bundt Cake



This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe was chosen by Erin of When in Doubt…Leave it at 350. She picked Mocha-Walnut Marbled Bundt Cake, which I was thrilled with since I love Bundt cakes! I’m not the biggest fan of walnuts, but there weren’t that many in this recipe and I figured it would be ok. For the complete recipe, you can visit Erin’s blog. This was really good so I suggest you check it out!

I made this cake for Easter dinner, and it was very well received. It starts with a basic cake batter (lots of butter this week!) that includes ground walnuts. You split the batter and add chocolate, coffee and espresso powder to half the batter and then swirl in the pan. Dorie gives you some options for the swirl, but it’s been my experience that swirls do what swirls want to do and so I didn’t try to orchestrate it too much. I layered the batters, swirled it a touch and hoped for the best.

I liked this cake, but I can’t say that the mocha flavor was that strong and the walnuts were a subtle addition. I thought that the coffee flavor would be strong, since I used brewed espresso for the coffee and espresso powder. My husband tasted the batters and he said that the finished cake was much better than the separate batters. This cake when well with Easter dinner because it wasn’t too sweet. We’d all had plenty of sugar already! I’d be curious how this cake would taste with a stronger flavored nut, like a hazelnut or a pistachio. Maybe I’ll try that next time.

Recipe from Baking from My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, pages 180 and 181

13 comments:

Hindy said...

Your cake looks lovely! Glad you enjoyed it.

Jessica of My Baking Heart said...

Beautiful - I thought this one was yummy, too! :)

Becky @ Project Domestication said...

yours looks great. i love having desserts that aren't too sweet.

i made the coconut tea cake for Easter. (added grapefruit and loved it!)

Jencrafted said...

Moist with soft crumbs - I love the texture of your cake!

Tia said...

Beautiful Marbling on your cake! nice job this week.

Pamela said...

I really liked the mild mocha flavor. I was worried about it being over powering. Anyway, nice job on the marbling. Really pretty!

Marthe said...

No mocha flavor here, I ran out of espresso powder so I used cocoa which my brother really seemed to like!!

Cindy said...

Beautiful cake. I will make a coffee free version soon.

Jeannette said...

If you want the coffee flavor to shine through, add 1/4 extra of the brewed coffee and reduce the milk in the batter ;) It won't amount to a cup of coffee, but it'll give it a nice coffee flavor. Your cake looks amazing!

Flourchild said...

I agree, I thought the flavor was mild, but I liked it. I made muffins.

Jules Someone said...

That cake looks so moist! Nice job!

Amanda said...

Looks fabulous, glad you liked it!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for baking with me this week and I am glad that you like the recipe :)