Easter Devil’s Food Bundt Cake

• Weigh out the butter, while cubing it & leave out on the worktop/counter to soften & come to room temperature. I like to cut into rough squares, about 1¼cm (½″) size as smaller surface area comes to room temperature quicker. See Photo 1 for an idea. But if you forget or are short on time, try this hack I reviewed, for Softening Butter In About 12 Minutes.
  

To Make The Cake Batter

• Begin by breaking up the chocolate into pieces, before melting in the microwave, in 30 second bursts. Do not heat any longer than 30 seconds or you run the risk of burning and ruining your chocolate. Mix in-between each 30 second burst. Alternatively, you can melt the chocolate in a bowl on top of a pan with barely simmering water. See Photo 2 below.
  
• Once melted, add in your milk and then the cocoa gradually, whisking together until relatively smooth. See Photo 3 & 4 below.
  
• Pre-heat your oven to: 170°c/150°c Fan Oven/325°c/Gas Mark 3.
  
• Next, mix lightly by hand, the softened cubed butter with the sugar, before beating with your hand/stand mixer till creamed together. The mixture will be spreadable and relatively smooth. Don't worry at this stage, about over-mixing. You want to incorporate as much air into the batter as possible. See Photo 5 below.
  
• Then beat in the egg yolks, yoghurt and melted chocolate mixture, mixing well in-between each addition. Then beat for 1 minute until some volume is created. See Photo 6.
  
• Sieve over the flour and Bicarbonate Of Soda (Baking Soda), and fold in gently by hand. Fold like the spatula is your pen and the batter your paper, as if you were writing a number '8'. This helps to reduce knocking out air you already incorporated into the batter. See Photo 7 below. A rubber or silicone spatula is advised, rather than something metal.
  
• In another bowl, whisk your egg whites, till firm peaks are formed. Be sure to use a bigger bowl than would normally fit the egg whites, as they will increase in volume. See Photo 8.
  
• Finally, fold the whisked egg whites into the prepared cake batter. Do so in increments of 3. Folding in a ⅓ of the whites to begin with, will be a little easier, and loosen the batter a little, making the next 2 additions easier to incorporate. Gradual and gentle folding, again to stop knocking out the air that is in the whisked egg whites. Fold only until no more white is visible and be sure to check the bottom of the bowl.
  

Bake The Cake

• Prepare your bundt pan by greasing really well. You can use softened butter and cocoa (see my Lining Cake tins lesson), or use what I find extremely good for bundt pans – lining paste. This is homemade, and less expensive than cake release spray, or using butter and flour. It is made from flour, vegetable oil & vegetable shortening, quick to make and stored in the fridge, ready to use whenever you need to grease something. Click to go to lining paste recipe. Applied generously, your cake will not stick in the bundt pan. As the cake is dark coloured, I take out 2 tbsp of the lining paste from the jar, and place in a small bowl, to which I add about ½ tsp cocoa powder. Mix these together, and it will make the paste a beige colour. I do this for any darker coloured cake.
  
• Apply the lining paste with a brush (I use artist brushes), to the inner 'tube' of the bundt pan, in upward stokes (vertical). Then the bottom and up the sides, again in vertical strokes upwards. This encourages the growth upwards, and means no friction for when it is time to release the cake. Apply thickly, and use all the lining paste you prepared. See Photo 11 below.
  
• Next gently pour and spoon the batter into the prepared bundt pan, letting it fall naturally. Then even out gently and give the pan a few gentle taps on the counter/worktop, before popping in the oven. See Photo 11 above.
• Bake the bundt cake for about 45 – 55 minutes until well risen, starting to come away from the sides of the pan, and a wooden cocktail stick, comes out clean of crumbs. See Photo 12 below.
  
• Leave to cool in the bundt pan, on top of a cooling rack for 10 minutes. Then you can place in the fridge for another 10 minutes, to speed up the process. (Alternatively, just leave to cool for 30 minutes on the rack.
  
• Remove from the cooling rack, and place a large serving plate on top of the cake. Hold them all together and carefully flip everything over. See Photo 13 above. Place on the table and carefully lift the bundt pan off the cake. It should come off easy and you will be able to tell as you begin to lift the bundt pan. With lining paste, it literally just drops straight out. If you think it's still holding on a little, you can tap the top of the bundt pan a few times and try again. If you feel it's still not going to come out in one piece, turn back over and leave to cool another 10 minutes and try again. See Photo 14 below.
  
• Leave to cool for about 20 minutes (or put back in the fridge for 10 minutes if in a hurry like me). See Photo 15. Meanwhile prepare the glaze.
  

Prepare The Glaze/Icing

• To make the chocolate glaze, simply add the sieved icing/powdered sugar and cocoa to a mixing bowl and mix together.
  
• Gradually start to add the milk in to the sugar & cocoa mixture. I like to add in tbsp amounts to begin with and mix really well in-between adding more. I mix by hand, using a metal spoon and pushing down on the sugar, to get it to take on as much of the liquid as possible. This and adding gradually, in controlled amounts, will ensure you don't add too much milk. See Photo 16 above.
  
• Once I have achieved a dark brown coloured thick paste, I then add in tsp amounts of milk, till I get closer to a pourable consistency. (See Photo 17 above). Then I add in ¼ or even ⅛ tsp amounts till I am happy. For the glaze to run nicely down your bundt, but not so much that it all puddles on the plate, thicker is better. You can test the thickness by lifting up with a spoon and watching as you let it fall back into the bowl. Thick, but can still run off relatively easily. If worried, too thick is better as you can spread it on and encourage some of it to fall down the sides. See Photo 18 below.

  **If not decorating the cake till later, make the glaze later too, as it will thicken.
  

Decorate The Cake

• Once the cake is cooled (never add a glaze to a warm or hot cake – drizzle is the only exception to this), you can add on the prepared glaze. If not decorating till later, make the glaze later. Begin by cutting out 4 squares of baking/parchment paper and placing partially under the cake, leaving some to cover the plate. This is how you can decorate and have a clean plate at the end. See Photo 19 below.
• To start, slowly spoon some of the glaze on the top-most edge of the bundt cake. Spreading on with the back of a spoon is good and can encourage it to go where you want. I let it fall towards the middle of the cake first. Once this area was covered, I moved on to spooning some nearer the top edge of the cake and letting it slowly fall down the side of the cake. You can encourage it down with your spoon if needed. This I find better than it running too quickly as it would mean that it's too runny and thin.
  
• Then gradually work your way around, letting drips fall down at intervals, or at points on the cake if there were ridges in your bundt pan. Once on, you can carefully go around and fill in any gaps until you are happy. There will be left-over glaze, so you could fill the centre more if you want, or just keep for serving. See Photo 19 above.
• You could add sprinkles at this stage if you liked, just before letting it set up. It will take 15 – 30 minutes, depending on the environment. For this photo shoot, I was loosing light so using the fridge a lot!
• Once set, you can go ahead and pull out the 4 pieces of paper from under the cake. Be careful of the glaze that is in the middle when removing.
  
• Now you can decorate however you like. Before baking the cake, I had measured my faux eggs as I knew the stakes were too tall for the cake. You can also use the tin as a guide. I simply cut off the ends, and you can wrap the cut ends in cling film/plastic wrap or even foil so it is not touching the cake. Then it was simply a case of positioning in the centre of the cake. See Photo below.
  

Serving

• Simply slice and enjoy! You will get at least 8 slices out of this cake (depending on how thick you cut the slices of course). Serve with some cream, or even better still – ice-cream! I enjoyed best with strawberry ice-cream.
  

Storing

• Store left-overs on a cake stand with dome, for up to 2 days. Alternatively, store in a cake tin and it will last about 3 or 4 days.
  

Freezing

• You can freeze the cooled cake, as a whole or in slices and decorate when you are ready to eat. I have not tested freezing with the glaze on (the cake was gone in 1 day!). However, I have frozen my Pineapple & Coconut Banana Bread and the glaze on that was still good after freezing