Recipe #2 Easy Chocolate Raspberry Overload Cake

This recipe was inspired by a Chocolate Cake found on a recipe website.  I love the combination of raspberry and chocolate, so I changed the recipe to incorporate raspberry flavor.  This recipe was a little difficult for me to adapt as it was pretty much a chemistry lesson.  I had to make it twice to get it exactly like I wanted it.  It is a really easy recipe that is pretty much dump, mix and bake.  Getting the combination of liquids right was tough.

Difficulty Level:  Easy

Ingredients:

1 (18.25 oz) package devil's food cake mix
1 (5.9 oz) package instant chocolate pudding mix
3/4 cup raspberry preserves (either seedless or seeded will work)
1/2 cup sour cream
3/4 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
1/2 cup warm water
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Spray a 9 x 13 inch pan with vegetable spray.  In a large bowl, mix together all ingredients except chocolate chips.  Mix with an electric mixer until well mixed.  Batter will be thick.  Stir in chocolate chips and pour batter into prepared pan.  Bake for 1 hour to 1 hour and 10 minutes or until top is springy to the touch and a wooden toothpick inserted comes out clean.  Cool cake thoroughly in pan before inverting onto a plate if desired.  Dust the cake with powdered sugar and cut into squares.


What I learned from this recipe:

I learned that when adding an ingredient to an existing recipe, you should evaluate the other ingredients in the recipe.  For instance, when I added the raspberry preserves to this recipe the first time, I kept all of the other ingredients at the same amounts and it didn't bake fully.  I used a bundt pan for my first attempt at this recipe and put a tunnel of raspberry preserves in the center of the batter.  When the cake baked all of the preserves melted and sunk to the bottom of the cake making a gooey top to the cake.  When my first attempt failed, I needed to change the entire presentation of the cake.  I lowered the amount of oil and sour cream from the original recipe to accommodate the addition of the preserves.  The result was a subtle raspberry flavor and a very moist, chocolaty cake.

What are your favorite flavor combinations?