Feathering Our Nest: Dr. Pepper Chocolate Cake, or, The Hazards of Lumps, Salt and Math in Cooking

I tried out a recipe I found on Pinterest, by Monica H. from Lick The Bowl Good, for Dr. Pepper Bundt cake. It combines three things I love, chocolate, Dr. Pepper, and cake, so it was definitely worth a try! I'd recently bought a six-pack of 16 oz bottles of Dr. Pepper because I needed some for another recipe I was making. I don't drink soda very often so it was nice to find another way to use up some of the soda.

It was a pretty simple cake to make, nothing complicated. I did find a few things to improve upon if I ever make the cake again, though. So to save you the trouble, I'll pass this knowledge on to you!!

First of all, the batter IS pretty lumpy when you mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. However, you have to be sure not to stir too much, otherwise the cake will end up being tough. Kind of a catch-22 for me. When I sliced into the baked cake, there were lots of white spots where the dry ingredients did not get mixed into the batter. So I recommend sifting the dry ingredients into the batter; I imagine that would help ensure everything gets mixed up properly.

Secondly, the recipe I followed noted that the original recipe for the frosting makes a ton, and the baker ended up only using about half of the frosting on the cake. So I cut the recipe in half, and the amount turned out to be perfect to cover the whole cake. However, because I am, apparently, a total and complete GENIUS, I forgot to halve the amount of salt when mixing things up (I have a long and storied history of messing up with the salt in baking... it's my nemesis). When I tasted the frosting, I was all, HOLY SALT LICK, BATMAN! I do love salted chocolate, but this was a little too much. The recipe in this post will have the halved amounts for the frosting, so you don't end up with my salty frosting fate! You're welcome. :D

So, here's how it went:

First, spray a 10-inch Bundt pan with cooking spray with flour (or grease it with butter and then coat it with flour). Then, gather together the ingredients. To start, you'll need Dr. Pepper, butter, and cocoa powder.

Measure them out and put them into a saucepan over medium-high heat until the butter melts.

(It looked kind of awesome when I poured the fizzy soda over the cocoa powder. ;P It reminded me of, like, lava or something).

Next, you'll need some brown sugar and granulated sugar. The recipe I used called for dark brown sugar, but I only had light brown sugar. So that's what I used!

Once the butter has melted in the Dr. Pepper mixture, remove it from the heat. Stir in the sugars till they dissolve, and then let it all cool for a little while. I poured it all into a large bowl at this point.

For your dry ingredients, you'll need flour, salt, and baking soda. Get them all mixed together. If I were you, I'd sift them together. I wish I had!!

Add two eggs to your cooled Dr. Pepper chocolate syrup of deliciousness, and mix well.

Then gently fold the dry mixture into the wet ingredients. If I were to do this again, I'd try sifting it into the wet mixture. You don't want to over mix the batter, but I ended up with tons of large lumps that never mixed in completely. :( Pour your batter into the prepared Bundt pan.

(My batter was sadly, extremely lumpy. Don't let this happen to you!! :O )

Bake the cake in your 325 F oven for 35-40 minutes. Turn the pan halfway through baking time so it cooks evenly. My cake needed a few extra minutes to bake, so be sure to test it with a toothpick before taking it out of the oven- the toothpick should come out clean. Let the cake cool in the pan on a baking rack. Once cool, loosen the sides and turn the cake out onto your storage surface.

Next: FROSTING! Gather thine ingredients:

I halved the recipe (but not the salt, much to my despair! Pay closer attention than I did!). First, melt the butter (the recipe said to soften it but I just melted it). The chocolate needs to be melted, too. I melted the butter most of the way, then added in the chocolate chips and melted it all down. That saved a bowl and the effort of scraping out melted chocolate. Add all of the frosting ingredients to a food processor (or a stand mixer; that's what I used. Or just dump it all into a bowl and use a hand mixer, or just a whisk! Whatever you have to get the job done). Mix everything until it turns into frosting, basically. :)

Frost the cake once it's completely cooled. The blog post/recipe I followed then topped the cake with round white sprinkles. It looked so cute. It made me think of the bubbles in soda. So I did the same thing. (The sprinkles didn't stick easily, though; a good number of them just rolled off and hit the floor. Grr.)

That's about all there is to it!

(My lumpy batter translated into white lumps in the cake. Sift, my friends, sift!!!)

This is a pretty tasty cake. It's extremely rich; you need to be a fan of dark chocolate or you may not like this much! Also, it doesn't taste anything like Dr. Pepper. Just to fully disclose everything :P. Whatever the case, with all the mess-ups, this cake did not turn out to be one of my best creations. It wasn't BAD.... in fact, both of my boys loved it and raved about it while eating. They're picky eaters, so I'll take the praise from them! I liked the piece I had too. The frosting was pretty salty (but eaten with the cake, it was a little better! A scoop of ice cream might help even more), and the lumps of flour and such looked bad but didn't affect the taste too badly. The cake was a little dryer and tougher than I'd like, but that might be because of overmixing (the batter really was absurdly lumpy, as I mentioned above!), and I made the cake the day before I made the frosting. If I'd frosted the cake earlier it may have sealed in more of the moisture. I was going to share some of this with neighbors, but I think now I won't. I don't want to share anything I'm not completely satisfied with!

If you try this recipe, let me know how it turned out! Let me know if sifting helped! :) And finally: beware of salt. That is all.

--Taylee

Here is the blog post and recipe I followed:

http://lickthebowlgood.blogspot.com/2009/06/calling-all-chocoholics.html

THE RECIPE (WITH HALVED FROSTING INGREDIENT AMOUNTS):

Dr. Pepper Bundt Cake (adapted from Lick The Bowl Good)

2 cups Dr. Pepper (not diet!)
1 cup dark unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup unsalted butter (1 stick, cut into small pieces)
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
2 cups flour (all-purpose)
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees Farenheit. Spray the inside of a 10-inch Bundt pan with cooking spray with flour (or grease it with butter and dust with flour).

Add the Dr. Pepper, cocoa powder, and butter chunks to a small saucepan and heat over medium-high heat until the butter has melted. Whisk in the sugars until dissolved. Pour the mixture into a large mixing bowl and let cool.

In a mixing bowl, sift the flour, baking soda, and salt.

In a small bowl, beat the eggs slightly. Mix them into the cooled chocolate mixture. Sift and fold the dry mixture into the wet mixture. Be careful not to over mix the batter! Pour the batter into the greased Bundt pan and bake at 325 F for 35-40 minutes. Rotate the pan halfway through the baking time to ensure even baking. The cake is done when a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean. Put the pan onto a cooling rack and allow the cake to cool completely.

Dr. Pepper Frosting: