Tunnel of Fudge Cake

Recently I made a birthday cake for a good friend with the fairly limited palate of a 10 year old boy. He wanted chocolate, and I wasn't going to mess around. I knew that getting fancy with flavours would not be appreciated-no wacky fruit filling or liqueur infusions; some nuts would be okay, maybe.

Still, I hadn't made a cake for a while and wanted to test my baking muscles. Browsing through Cooking with Les Dames D'Escoffier, I found a winner. Shirley Corriher, biochemist and cookbook writer, and her update on a Pillsbury classic, the Tunnel of Fudge Cake. A runner-up in the Bake-Off contest in the 1960s, this recipe helped popularize the bundt pan and developed a cult following. A simple chocolate cake with walnuts, its secret is an inner ring of fudge within the baked cake. This was originally achieved with a Pillsbury frosting mix, now discontinued, but Corriher re-worked the recipe without. Published in the NYTimes Science section, it is extremely detailed and Corriher explains exactly why it works. All baking demands precision, but I was careful to follow to the seemingly minute detail (natural cocoa, as she insists the more commonly found Dutch-processed will cause the cake to fail). She explains it much better than I could, so I am linking to her recipe and the accompanying article.

The method is fairly standard, beginning with creaming butter and sugar (usually a pain by hand, a greater pain with flimsy forks). Make sure butter and eggs are at room temperature, both for ease of creaming and the benefit of your end result.

School was briefly out for me and I re-purposed my book stand into a cookbook stand.

The finished product, dusted with confectioner's sugar. You could do a frosting or glaze, but the cake itself is so rich and sweet that it isn't necessary and may be too much.

The birthday boy and cake in action.

A terrible attempt to show the inside tunnel of the cake.

I was a bit nervous about the tunnel effect and the consistency of the cake-you can't check for doneness with a thermometer, but rather must trust your oven temperature's accuracy, or use an oven thermometer if you lack this trust. All in all, the cake was a huge success and great for chocolate lovers. I will definitely be making it again.