I often find that, for me at least, baking is an exercise in self discovery.

This week, my new discovery was that I absolutely hate trying to grease and flour a silicone bundt pan.

I’ve never felt like I was on a hidden camera show in my kitchen more than I did when I wrestled with that darn pan. I’m pretty sure there was more flour on me than there was in my pan. I’ve heard that you can get away with not greasing and flouring a silicone pan, but after taking the time to put together a recipe, I haven’t ever been brave enough to not do it, just in case.

The good news, though, is that my wrestling match with my bundt pan was definitely worth it, because I got a delicious chocolate chip bundt cake out of the deal (not a bad trade off).

This week’s recipe comes from a series of “one bowl” recipes that the website “Serious Eats” has been publishing. Their goal is that you will only have to dirty one bowl in the quest to make whatever recipe they feature.

I changed up the recipe in several spots from theirs, so if you’d like to see how they made this, go to

http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2013/07/one-bowl-chocolate-chipbundt-cake-recipe.html.

Chocolate Chip Bundt Cake
Print Recipe

Chocolate Chip Bundt Cake

Chocolate chip bundt cake tastes a lot like a chocolate chip cookie in cake form.
Course: Dessert
Keyword: brown sugar, bundt cake, chocolate chips, semisweet chocolate chips, sour cream, vanilla

Ingredients

  • 16 tablespoons unsalted butter softened
  • 1 1/2 cups packed light brown sugar
  • 3/4 teaspoon salt
  • 3 large eggs
  • 1 1/4 cups sour cream
  • 2 tablespoons vanilla extract
  • 3 cups all-purpose flour sifted twice (or use cake flour)
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/2 plus 1/8 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

Instructions

  • Preheat your oven to 350 degrees, with your rack in the middle position.
  • Cream together the butter, brown sugar and salt.
  • Add the eggs one at a time, stirring until just incorporated after each addition.
  • Add the sour cream and vanilla and stir to incorporate.
  • Add the flour, baking powder and baking soda, and stir until it’s just beginning to be incorporated, and
  • then add your chocolate chips and continue stirring until all the ingredients are mixed together well.
  • Spoon the batter into a greased and floured nine-inch bundt pan.
  • Bake for 40 to 50 minutes until the cake is set (You won’t be able to use the toothpick method; just remove it when the cake looks pretty done on top. I ended up having to leave mine in for an hour, but that might have been due to my silicone pan).
  • Remove the cake from the oven and let it cool for 45 minutes so that it can finish setting up, then invert it onto your serving dish.

If you like chocolate chip cookies (is there anyone who doesn’t?), you’ll really like this bundt cake, because it’s basically a cookie in cake form.

This really doesn’t need it, but if you want to add a glaze to this, try combining a cup and a quarter of powdered sugar with three tablespoons of milk, and drizzle it over top.

That will add a light, sugary coating to finish it off.

I hope your bundt cake pan experience is more positive than mine, but to be honest, I’ll probably still make this again. It was too good not to. Who knows? Maybe I’ll conquer flouring a bundt pan yet.

This piece first appeared in print on Aug. 1, 2013.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.