Pies.

4. Add the shortening and knead it into the flour with your hands until it is crumbly.

5. Add the milk all at once and mix in with a spatula until it begins to come together.

6. Lightly flour your hands and the countertop and turn the dough out onto the countertop. Knead the dough ball, folding over 10 to 20 times.

7. Using a rolling pin roll the dough to 1/3 to 1/2-inch thickness, then cut into rounds using a 2 1/4-inch ring. Roll each round as thinly as possible or to 5 to 6 inches in diameter. (This might take a little practice to get right–but the dough should be REALLY thin, just one step above tearing apart.)

8. Spoon 1 to 2 tablespoons of filling onto the dough, brush the edges of half of the dough lightly with the egg wash, fold over and seal the edges together with the tines of a fork, dipping it into flour as needed. Gently press down to flatten and evenly distribute the filling and snip or cut 3 slits in the top of the pie.

9. Brush a little bit of egg wash on the outside of the pie and sprinkle with decorating sugar.

10. To bake pies, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Place finished pies onto an ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until golden brown.

Give me the choice between chocolate and vanilla cake, and I’ll choose vanilla. Always. It’s not that I don’t like chocolate cake. Because, c’mon… it’s cake. I don’t discriminate. But still… vanilla always wins me over.

Thankfully, there are people in my life who do prefer chocolate cake, so I still get to enjoy it every once in a while!

I bookmarked this bundt cake recipe several weeks ago, and was just waiting for someone to “make me” make it. That someone? It turned out to be my mom. It was her birthday last week, and we got together as a family yesterday to celebrate. All of the other dessert recipes I had my eye on contained strawberries–which, for some CRAZY reason, my mom doesn’t like. And so, that left this bundt cake. This lovely, chocolate bundt cake. Yum.

A perfectly moist, fluffy, chocolatey bundt cake, covered with a delightfully creamy and slightly tangy chocolate glaze. Um, HELLO!

We hate coffee in this household, so I didn’t use it in the recipe. I used water instead. It’s not that I think the coffee flavors would’ve really come through (I hear that all it does is enhance the chocolate flavors); it’s just that we do not own a coffee maker, or coffee of any sort, and I certainly wasn’t going to willingly buy any. I don’t think the cake suffered from the lack of coffee at all, so take that for what it’s worth.

The only other change I made was to make only half of the glaze. I read in the comments on Joy’s post that everyone thought the recipe made way too much glaze, and to avoid having so much extra, I decided to cut the recipe in half. Good thing, too, because even that made a lot of glaze–I had a bit left over, even after generously dousing my cake. Speaking of dousing the cake… the one thing I wished I had done was to line the outside edges of the cake bottom with wax paper prior to pouring the glaze. I ended up having big globs of glaze all along the bottom that I needed to wipe up in order to put the lid on my cake plate. So, lesson learned.

I finished everything off with a handful of rainbow sprinkles to make it festive for my momma’s birthday. Nothing left to do but eat and enjoy.

The Best Chocolate Bundt Cake with Chocolate Glaze
(Source: Adapted from The Big Sur Bakery Cookbook, as seen on Joy the Baker)

Ingredients:
For the cake:
– 1 1/4 cups plus 1 Tablespoon brewed coffee (or hot water)
– 3/4 cup Dutch process cocoa powder
– 2 1/4 cups sugar
– 1 1/4 teaspoons kosher salt
– 2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
– 2 whole eggs
– 1 egg yolk
– 1 1/4 cups plus 1 Tablespoon buttermilk
– 1 cup plus 2 Tablespoon canola oil
– 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
– 2 1/2 cups, plus 2 Tablespoons all-purpose flour, sifted

For the glaze:
– 3 ounces unsweetened chocolate
– 3/4 stick (6 tbsp.) unsalted butter
– 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
– 1/4 cup sour cream, at room temperature
– 1/8 cup brewed coffee, cooled (or water)

Directions:
1. Place an oven rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees F.

2. Grease and flour a 10-inch Bundt pan and set aside.

3. To make the cake batter: Put brewed coffee (or hot water) and cocoa powder in a small saucepan and bring to a boil, whisking frequently. Remove from the heat and let come to room temperature.

4. In the bowl of a stand mixer fit with a whisk attachment, mix together sugar, salt, baking soda, eggs and egg yolk on low speed for about 1 minute. Add the buttermilk, oil and vanilla extract and mix on low again for another minute.

5. Add the flour and mix on medium speed for 2 minutes. Add the cooled cocoa mixture and mix on medium speed for 3 minutes. The batter will be very loose. Pour into the prepared cake pan and bake for 1 hour, or until a cake tester inserted in the cake comes out clean.

6. Let the cake cool completely in the pan and then invert onto a cooling rack.

7. To make the icing: Chop the chocolate into small pieces, put them in a heatproof bowl (or a double boiler), and set the bowl over a pot of barely simmering water. Be sure that the bottom of the bowl does not touch the boiling water. Remove the bowl from the heat when all of the chocolate bits have melted.

8. Melt the butter in a separate pan or in the microwave. Whisk the melted butter into the melted chocolate until thoroughly incorporated. Sift in half of the powdered sugar. Add the sour cream and whisk to combine. Sift in the remaining powdered sugar and whisk until smooth. The glaze should be thick and shiny. Lastly, add the coffee and whisk to create a glossy glaze.

9. Pour the glaze over the Bundt cake, covering it completely. Leave at room temperature until ready to serve.