Christmas Eve when in Hawaii is spent at the home of my mother's friend. In classic local style, the men are outside with the cooler of beer, poke, and grill, while the women eat and talk story with an insane quantity of food inside. The men come in solely to fill their plates or to drop off even more food from the grill. Multiple starches are a must. I mean, how do you survive without rice, noodles AND potatoes?
Multiple desserts are a must, too. I'm generally expected to come up with at least two choices. This year, my mother requested a chocolate bundt cake, moist and with a glaze. She talked longingly of the way the bakery used to make a cake (rum cake?) that would get fully submerged in glaze, leaving it completely encased in sweet, slightly crisp, goodness. Well, I sure as heck am not making a literal bucket of glaze! Still, once you've had the full glaze experience, it's hard to go back. It takes some patience, but you really can encase a cake in glaze without the bucket.
The first incarnation of this cake used peanut butter chips. My mother dug them out of the fridge and asked if I could use them up. Sure, I say, why not? Chocolate and peanut butter, great! Or not. Some people loved it, gummy though the texture seemed to us. Maybe it's a guy thing. Those who loved it were all male. We preferred the second version with plain old semisweet chocolate chips. Yes, I made two of these in two days.
This is a truly easy cake. You don't need anything fancier than a whisk, which was part of the plan since my mother doesn't have an electric mixer. It's also measured by volume since she doesn't have a scale. And yes, we do have ovens in Hawaii so it isn't designed to cook in an imu (pit with hot rocks); it's Kahlua the liqueur, not kalua like pig.
Chocolate Kahlua Bundt Cake
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1 Tablespoon cornstarch
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1-1/2 cups water
1/2 cup Kahlua liqueur
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 Tablespoons white vinegar
3/4 cup chocolate chips (or peanut butter chips if you're adventurous)
1 recipe Kahlua Glaze
Preheat oven to 350°. Grease and flour a Bundt pan very well.
In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, cornstarch, baking soda, salt and cocoa. In a separate bowl, whisk together water, Kahlua, oil and vinegar. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and whisk until well combined. Pour into prepared pan. Sprinkle chocolate chips over the top.
Bake until tester inserted in center comes out clean, about 45 to 55 minutes. Cool in pan on rack for 10 minutes, then remove from pan and cool until just slightly warm on rack. Place on serving plate.
Carefully spoon glaze over cake, a little at a time. Use your fingers to spread the glaze over the entire surface, adding more glaze layer by layer until all the glaze is on the cake, encasing it fully. Try to add the glaze slowly enough that you don't waste much dripping onto the plate.
Kahlua Glaze
8 ounces sifted powdered sugar (about 2 cups or, if no scale, half the box)
3 Tablespoons soy milk (or half-and-half, cream, or milk, if that's what you have)
2 Tablespoons Kahlua
Whisk all ingredients together until smooth.
