May have to try this.
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Oh, man, does this take me back! The very first Bundt I had was a Tunnel of Fudge, probably in the late '60s. I am so gonna try this!
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My mother made Bundt cakes more often than layer cakes. I didn’t know they weren’t popular originally as the article implies. Maybe they were always popular in the middle of the country.
Upon reading the recipe more thoroughly, it says to stir in the frosting mix (which becomes the fudge) into the batter. How does this end up as a tunnel through the cake if it’s mixed into the batter? I’m confused. ISTR other ‘filled’ bundt cakes called for the filling layer to be added carefully to the batter in the cake pan. How does this work?
Also: SIX EGGS! I’m not sure I’m feeling splurgy enough right now to commit that much of my food budget to a cake just yet! I wish we still had our chickens.
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I think the idea is that the ‘frosting mix’ does some sort of food-science-y stuff (which I do not pretend to understand. I quit after organic chem) such that the edges of the cake all cook enough to solidify, while leaving the center fudgey and ‘underbaked’, while, presumably, still cooking it enough that it’s safe to eat.
And yeah, 6 eggs? That’s… a LOT. I also wish we had our chickens. My partner tried to keep some for almost a year. We lost 3 to raccoons, trying each time for better security, until it became clear that we’d have to invest WAY WAY more than was cost effective to keep even 2-3 hens safe in our fairly urban environment.
Now a days, maybe it maths out different, but making a coop and yard raccoon-resistant is HARD. Layers of fencing, you have to BURY fencing because they WILL tunnel under. Pity. The eggs were delicious.
Friends who split their time between the boonz and NYC used to have hens and lost a lot of them to hawks and coyotes.
They gave up for a while, but now have hens again and a VERY safe coop.
I watched Emmy make a Tunnel of Fudge cake that did not make a separate fudge filling but instead relied on a dry mix she found from Whole Foods. She just mixed it in with the rest of the ingredients and baked it. Yes, the ‘fudge filling’ is probably technically underbaked batter, but it soothes my anxiety a little. Now all I need to do is come to terms with using so many eggs…
Edited to add a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lX5tTN85L5s
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The woman who re-developed the recipe explains it this way in the article:
The frosting mix seemed to contain a lot of sugar and also cornstarch; sugar, she explained, increases the temperature required to gelatinize starch, so the cake’s center remains liquidy-ish even though the cake gets hot enough to be food-safe.
That being said, I’m not a food scientist. The buttercream they create here is different from the one made in our family (powdered sugar, cocoa, milk, and butter “until it looks right” - source: BF’s mom). Theirs is powdered sugar, cocoa, salt, vegetable shortening and additional cornstarch (beyond that which is already in your box of powdered sugar).
