Choc-ful Cake - A Cheater's Recipe

I hate the "synthetic" taste of cakes that are made from ready cake mixes. And it's so not cool to say that you've used store-bought mixes instead of baking it from scratch....especially if your aim is to impress with your home-baked goods.

But hey, baking is easy....it's the measuring of ingredients and the washing afterwards that is difficult. So once in awhile, when you are too lazy to do too much or when your in-laws are visiting with very short notice, I'd say it's ok to cheat with ready mixes as long as the cake doesn't taste like synthetic crap.

Ingredients:

1 packet (18.25oz) of chocolate cake mix

1 packet of low-fat instant chocolate pudding mix

1 cup of low-fat sour cream
1/2 cup of corn oil

1/3 cup of low-fat milk

4 eggs (beaten)

1/2 cup of coffee (dissolve 1.5 tsp of instant coffee in 1/2 cup of warm water)

1 cup of semisweet chocolate chips

Method:

Preheat oven to 350F

Add cake mix, pudding mix, sour cream, oil, milk, beaten eggs and coffee solution into a mixing bowl and blend with electric mixer at medium speed till well mixed.

Fold in chocolate chips.

Grease a bundt pan and pour the batter in and level.

Bake for 50-55min or until an inserted toothpick comes out quite clean.

Leave the cake to cool for at least 1.5hr in room temperature before turning it out.

You can tell whoever that you are trying to impress that sour cream, coffee & choco chips all go into the cake to make it pop. And they'd probably jump to their own conclusion that you've made the entire cake from scratch =P ....and they would never be able to guess that you've used cake mix 'cos it wouldn't taste of it at all.

The cake is good on its own.....but you can dust the cake with icing sugar or drizzle a chocolate glaze on top if you want to wow further.

And to wow super big time, you can slice the cake in the middle after removing it from the bundt pan and sandwich fresh cream & strawberries in between before topping it off with a chocolate glaze!

Super easy.....super impressive results.