Andes Mint Chocolate Bundt Cake

It was my 3 year old daughter's turn to pick out our dessert for family game night on Sunday, and insisted it needed to be a cake. I was pushing for cookies, since we were already planning on birthday cake later in the week, but you know how 3 year olds are. She was determined. So I hunted down a recipe from Our Best Bites (love them!), and found a recipe for a Chocolate Peppermint Bundt Cake. It looked amazing, and I started making it just to realize half way through that I was actually out of a few of the ingredients. I didn't want to run to the store (especially because it was Sunday, and I try my best not to shop on the Sabbath- plus I was pretty sure there wouldn't be many candy canes on the shelves in February), so I rummaged through my pantry and fridge and found some great substitutions.

 Andes Mint Chocolate Bundt Cake

1 box Devil's Food Cake Mix (I used Betty Crocker)
1 small box instant chocolate pudding
4 eggs
1 cup vegetable or canola oil
1/2 cup whole milk (I used whole to give it a little fat since the other dairy ingredients were lighter)
1/2 cup light sour cream (I like Daisy)
1/2 cup Nonfat Plain Greek Yogurt
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup chocolate chips (I used Hershey's dark chips)
1/4 cup Andes Mint bits

butter for greasing pan
cocoa powder for dusting pan

Glaze

1/2 cup dark or semi sweet chocolate chips
1/2 TBSP butter
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/3 cup Andes Mint bits (divided in half- some to go into the glaze, the rest to be sprinkled on top)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease up the bundt pan with butter. Shake cocoa powder around to coat the butter. If you have extra cocoa powder after shaking around, dump it out.

Mix together eggs, sour cream, yogurt, oil, milk and vanilla until smooth. Then slowly stir in cake mix and pudding mix- little by little until combined. Scrape the sides of the bowl and beat for 2 minutes on med high. Add in the chocolate chips and 1/4 cup Andes mints.

Pour batter into the bundt pan and bake for 45-50 minutes (it took mine closer to 50), until tooth pick or cake tester comes out with moist crumbs- not completely dry.

While your bundt is in the oven, start working on your glaze. Put cream in a pan on the stove (a double boiler would be best, but I just used a sauce pan), and warm it up on low. Add in the chocolate, butter and andes mint bits and whisk together quickly until smooth. Take off of the heat and let rest in the pan until later.

Pull your bundt out of the oven when it's ready, and let it cool for about 3-5 minutes. Dump it out of the bundt pan onto a cooling rack. Let it cool for about 15 minutes, then with a large plate underneath the rack (just under the cake), start spooning the glaze over the cake. A lot of your glaze will drip down onto the plate under the cake. Scrape the glaze off of the plate into the bowl it was in, replace the plate under the cooling rack, and pour the glaze over the cake again. Repeat until as much of the glaze as possible is on your cake. Then top with the remaining Andes Mint bits.

This cake is absolutely perfection when it is served warm- but it's wonderful at room temperature as well. We threw a dollop of whipped cream on top, but a scoop of ice cream would have been an amazing companion as well.

My husband said this was the best cake I've ever made, so I will definitely be making this again! Especially because he's not huge on chocolate cake in general, and chocolate is my favorite!

The other great thing about this cake, was that it really kept its moisture, and was super tasty the next day. Or maybe that wasn't such a good thing? At least as far as my waistline is concerned....