Chocolate Chips Sour Cream Marble Cake

This is not a donut, if it is, it will be a 10.5" gigantic donut :P.

When I saw this chocolate chips sour cream marble cake from Honey Bee Sweets, from the way she described the cake I know that I just have to bake this cake.

If you are a loyal reader of HBS, you will definitely know that she loves and uses a lot of Valrohna chocolate. She kept mentioning how good is valrohna chocolate, tempting me to buy it . Yes the temptation is great but it still took me a while to finally decided to make the purchase. Firstly of course is the price, it costs much more than other baking chocolates. Secondly, the baking supply stores that I always frequent (nearby my house and office) do not carry Valrohna.

My resistant of temptation finally came to the end after seeing this chocolate chips sour cream marble cake post, Bee Bee had reminded me again on Valrohna. So I went straight to the baking supply store that carry this brand to make the purchase, I bought both 1 kg chocolate block and cocoa powder (despite I still have 4 boxes of Hershey cocoa powder stocked in my cabinet :p) and some other baking ingredients, I left the place with a "hole" in my pocket but fully satisfied :).


Recipe adapted from Honey Bee Sweets, I reduced the ingredients to fit my 10.5" bundt cake pan.

Ingredients :
Chocolate Paste
2.5 tbsp cocoa powder (I used Valrohna, feel free to use any brand you prefer)
2.5 tbsp hot water

Cake Batter
210g unsalted butter, room temperature (I used salted as I took the wrong one)
275g caster sugar (this amount of sugar had slightly reduced from HBS's recipe)
4 medium eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
175g sour cream
350g all purpose flour
2 1/3 tsp baking powder
1/6 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt (I omit since I used salted butter)
1/3 cup chocolate chips (I used 55.5% cocoa)

Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 180C. The generously grease a 10.5" bundt pan.
2. In a small bowl, mix the cocoa powder and the hot water together to make a smooth paste.
3. In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar together till light and fluffy. Blend in the eggs and then vanilla. Then add in the sour cream, and scraping the bottom of the mixing bowl to make sure it is evenly combined.
4. Fold in the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and blend well. Lastly, mix in the chocolate chips into the batter and mix well.
5. Remove 1/3 of the batter and mix in the chocolate paste in to it.
6. Spoon in big scoops of vanilla batter into the bundt pan and alternating with some spoons on chocolate batter as well to create the marble effect. Repeat till all the batter has been put in.
7. Place in the oven to bake for 35 to 40 minutes (I should have baked for 30 mins since I used reduced the ingredients to fit 10.5"), depending on your oven. Bake till golden brown and the tester comes out clean. If the top of the cake browns too quickly, cover with foil first until done.
8. Once baked, remove from oven and let cool on rack for 15 minutes, then remove from pan and let cool completely.

Verdict?
The cake is just as delicious as what Bee Bee had described, it tasted soft, velvet, moist except a little bit dry at the edge that probably I had slightly over baked the cake. The cake tasted even better the next day, this cake can only survived in my and dear mum's house until the next day :).
Valrohna cocoa powder indeed gives the deep, dark, intense chocolate flavor to the cake. It tasted a little bitter to me when bite into the 55.5% cocoa chocolate chips but it still tasted good. Consider I am a milk chocolate lover that never fancy on dark/bitter chocolate, I am starting to love bitter chocolate in my bakes, it balance off the sweetness of the cake that tasted simply irresistible. My family loves this cake a lot too, even my mum also kept praising on it, definitely a keeper.