I baked a cake for my dad’s birthday yesterday.  He loves Bundt cakes with pudding in the middle.  Unfortunately, the mixes for those cakes are no long made.  So, I did my best to find a recipe that would be similar…I found the “Tunnel of Fudge.”  I didn’t think it was an exact match for my dad’s favorite cake, but close enough!  This recipe required a lot of work, such as chopping pecans and boiling water, but my dad is worth it.

After all the mixing,  I finally got the cake in the oven:

It was a little hard to tell if the cake was done.  It was sort of pulling away from the sides of the pan but the top was not springy.  When I pushed my finger down it crumbled.  I thought maybe it was slightly overdone.

My recipe calls for 10 minutes of cooling in the pan before removing, however I was a little excited to get it out.  I took it out after only 8 minutes.  BIG mistake, it bled out.  Much of the “fudge” oozed out of the small crack that formed in the side.  I was covered in fudge, my husband, kitchen, two dogs and one kitty were also covered in fudge.  What a mess.   There are no photographs after this point because I didn’t want fudge in my relatively fudge-free camera.  After most of the fudge spilled out I thought it would be a good idea to put it back in the pan.  The hemorrhage stopped and the cooling process was completed there. Whoo!

Well, despite the loss of all of the fudge the cake was still good.  My dad thought it tasted more like a brownie cake and with vanilla ice cream; it was delicious.  It’s the thought that counts, right?

Oh, one last thing; I decided to take a quick picture of the cake with a scoop o’ vanilla ice cream.  Just as I was getting ready to snap the picture, my dog, Bear popped his head up to get a look…or possibly a lick. One scoop of ruined ice cream, but a great photo of Bear.