There's a hole in this cake...

"It's a bundt"
"Boont?"
"BUNDT! BUNDT!"

Ah, one of my absolute favorite scenes from a movie ever. I can't make a bundt cake without saying it to anyone who may be around to listen...

So back to the story! This week's cake is a beauty. Even my picky-pants husband liked it (seriously, that's saying something)! This week I made a Chocolate Chocolate Chip Pound Cake courtesy of Ms. Paula Deen. I need to tell you it's by Paula so when you look at the recipe below and say "Natalie, what the heck is WRONG with you?! A stick of butter?!" you'll know it's not me...it's Paula. And DANG is it good! I'm quite convinced that the pudding is what makes this recipe so delicious. It stays so gooey and moist, I bet you could leave it on the counter for a day and it would still be delicious!

I made the Chocolate Chocolate Chip Pound cake on the premise that I would slice it up and bring it to the office bake sale. Yay me, good deeds. Welp. Not the case.

Turns out that the office bake sale was more of a department bake sale...and I have too much pride to bring it downstairs with a big smile and say, "I made you a cake to sell!" to a bunch of people I don't know. So now I have a big honkin' cake on my counter at home. Great.

I think I'm going to bring a big chunk to my landlord upstairs, wrapped up all pretty like I planned this all along :) Anyway, on to the recipe!

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Pound Cake
by, Paula Deen from The Lady & Sons, Too

• 4 eggs
  
• 1 1/2 C Water
  
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
  
• 1 pkg butter recipe cake mix
  
• 1 3.4 oz pkg instant vanilla pudding mix*
  
• 1 3.4 oz pkg instant chocolate pudding mix*
  
• 1/2 C (1 stick) melted butter
  
• 1/4 C vegetable oil
• 6 oz chocolate chips
  

Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease and flour tube pan.

In mixing bowl, beat the eggs, water, and vanilla by hand**. Stir in the cake mix and pudding mixes. Slowly add the butter and oil, and mix well. Stir in the chocolate chips.

Pour into prepared pan. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes***.

Cool for 10 minutes, then invert onto a cake plate. Sift confectioner's sugar over the cake, or drizzle chocolate sauce over it, if desired****.

Alrighty, here's where I put in my two cents.

*I have no idea what kind of mutant pudding packages they sell in Georgia, but here in our lovely Nation's Capitol, they sell 3.9oz packages. Normally I'd just throw in the whole package, but the cake is already so dense and moist, I just eyeball it and leave some pudding in the package. Use your best judgement.

**If you're looking to beef up your arms (maybe you're going for the Schwarzenegger look?)...go ahead and beat everything by hand. But I'll tell you that when the recipe tells you to mix in the oil and melted butter slowly, that batter is going to be so thick you'll be swearing like a sailor by the time you need to "mix well". I had Jeff come in and pour slowly, so I could hold the bowl with one hand and mix with the other. The next time I make it, I'll beat the eggs, water, vanilla in my KitchenAid mixer bowl by hand, then just attach it to the mixer for the rest, and keep it on low speed.

***For once my super-charged oven went the full time on a recipe! I cooked mine for the full 60 min.

****Call me a purist, but I say this cake needs nothing but a cold glass of milk.

Hope you enjoy!

But I would be proud to partake in your...

Pecan Pieeee!

Chocolate pecan pie to be exact. *gracefully receives "ooh"s and "aah"s from the peanut gallery. A-thank you, a-thank you*

Here's a little back story:

I had such a wonderful weekend. I took off work on Friday because my wonderful mom came to visit! We spent the weekend shopping, eating at awesome restaurants around DC (Seventh Hill, Co Co Sala, and Chef Geoff's to name a few), and of course made a stop at the incredible Georgetown Cupcake. We always have the best time when she's in town, and I'm always sad to see her go. So she left this morning, and I was admittedly a little mopey. What better to lift my spirits than baking?!

I started off with a pie crust recipe that I got from a cooking class at Hill's Kitchen. It's a Butter/Shortening pie crust that creates nothing short of heaven. Any other day I would post it here, but it's so involved and so tricky, that I would just recommend looking up a recipe on your own, and working through it. Pie crust seems to be a tricky beast to tame, and while it's been edible the two times I've made it, it's a serious science to figure out the consistency of the perfect crust.

Here's my step by step process for tonight's baking fun:

First: Make the dough!

Would ya look at that pretty little dough ball? Well after I let it sit in the fridge for 2 hours (it needs at least 30 minutes to chill) I rolled it out to find an extremely cracked hunk of dough. Lucky for me I had that handy-dandy glass of water there to help me. I have found, also, that this little baby makes pie dough a piece of cake...well...a piece of pie at the very least:

Meet my mean, green, dough making machine:

This little baby makes cutting butter and shortening into flour a cinch. No forks, no knives, just pulse! It's a beauty, and I doubt I'd be as adventurous about making pie if I didn't have it.

Next I followed Paula Deen's recipe for Chocolate Pecan Pie and used some adorable little mini fall cookie cutters that my mom got me this weekend from Hill's Kitchen. Seriously, if you haven't been to that store here on the Hill, it's just awesome. If you like cooking the tiniest bit, you will *love* this store! Here's what I ended up with (pre-baked):

How cute are those little leaves?! And here's what it looks like post-baked:

HA! Just kidding, I didn't eat the whole thing...just a slice. Bringing it to work tomorrow, though, because leaving it in my house is a dangerous dangerous thing!

Hope you all have a Happy Monday!