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Churro Inspired Chocolate Cinnamon Bundt Cake

In this churro inspired dessert, sour cream cinnamon bundt cake is swirled with chocolate for a moist and tender marble cake. Wonderful as is, but even better when topped with a brown butter cinnamon icing!
Course Dessert
Cuisine Spanish
Servings 12 slices
Author Just a Little Bit of Bacon

Ingredients

Cinnamon Cake

  • 3 cups (12 oz) cake flour
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp table salt
  • 1 cup (2 sticks, 8 oz) unsalted butter, cool room temperature
  • 1 cup granulated sugar
  • 1 cup light brown sugar, packed
  • 1/4 cup vegetable oil
  • 4 large eggs, room temperature
  • 2 egg yolks, room temperature
  • 1 tbsp vanilla
  • 1 cup sour cream, room temperature
  • 4 oz bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped, or bittersweet chocolate chips

Brown Butter Icing

  • 2 cups confectioners' sugar
  • 2 tsp vanilla
  • 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 cup (1 stick, 4 oz) unsalted butter
  • 1-2 tbsp milk

Instructions

Cinnamon Cake

  • Preheat oven to 350F. Pull out your 10-12 cup bundt pan.
  • Mix together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt.
  • In a standing mixer fitted with a flat beater, cream together butter, granulated sugar, and brown sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, 3-4 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a silicone spatula and add the vegetable oil. Mix on medium until well combined.
  • Add the eggs and yolks one at a time, mixing for about 30 seconds in between each. Scrape down the bowl as needed. Add vanilla and mix in.
  • Turn the mixer to low so that you can begin adding the flour and sour cream. Add 1/3 of the flour and mix until just incorporated. Then 1/2 of the sour cream, 1/3 of the flour, 1/2 of the sour cream, and finish with the remaining 1/3 of flour. Each time mix until the addition is mostly mixed in. When you are done, take the bowl off of the mixer and finish mixing in the flour with your spatula in a few swift strokes.
  • Fill a medium saucepan with 1-2 inches of water. Heat the water until it's steaming but not quite simmering. Fill a heat proof bowl which fits snugly over the saucepan with the bittersweet chocolate chips. Melt the chocolate, stirring occasionally with a silicone spatula, being careful not to let the water boil.
  • Scoop out about 2 cups of the cake batter into a bowl. Mix the batter with the melted chocolate.
  • Spray your bundt pan with a flour and oil baking spray, or grease the pan with oil and then dust it with flour, tapping out the excess.
  • Dollop spoonfuls of both the yellow batter and chocolate batter into the the bundt pan so that you have layers of yellow and chocolate filling the pan. Then take a long skewer and give the batter a stir, doing a few gentle curly-cues around the pan.
  • Bake the cake for 60-75 minutes, or until a long skewer comes out clean with only a few crumbs attached.
  • Rest the cake for about 20 minutes in the pan. Then gently loosen the cake around the edges and carefully invert the cake onto a cooling rack. Let cake cool completely.

Brown Butter Icing

  • Mix together confectioners' sugar, cinnamon, and vanilla in a medium bowl.
  • Heat butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Once the butter has melted and has stopped bubbling up and splattering but has begun to foam, watch it carefully. Once the flecks of milk solids on the bottom turn brown and the butter smells nutty, take it off the heat. Immediately pour the butter into the bowl with the sugar.
  • Whisk to combine, adding 1-2 tablespoons of milk to the icing. IMPORTANT - USE ICING WHILE IT'S HOT. As soon as your icing comes together, drizzle it over the cake.

Notes

  • If you don't have a kitchen scale (and you totally should!), spoon the cake flour into the cup and then sweep off the excess with the flat side of a knife.
  • To get the ingredients to room temperature quickly: Cut the butter into 1 tablespoon pieces and wait about 10 minutes. Fill a bowl with hot tap water (hot but you can easily put your hand in it), add the eggs, and wait about 10 minutes. Put the sour cream in a metal container and then into a bowl of hot tap water so that it comes part way up the sides.
  • The 20 minute rest period is very important. This allows the cake to firm up and to shrink a little so that it isn't attached to the sides anymore.
  • The cake fits perfectly into a 12 cup bundt. If you are using a 10 cup, you will either need to stop filling when your batter is about 1 1/2 inches below the top, or be ready to trim off the bottom of the cake. Only trim off the bottom of the cake if you have a VERY sharp serrated blade and feel brave.
  • I've found that it's best to the oil the pan just before you are going to use it. This way the oil and flour don't have time to settle in the crevices of the pan.
  • It's very important to use the icing while it is hot. Once the icing starts to cool, it will begin to break and the butter will separate if you are still working with it. Step away and call it done if you see the icing breaking in the bowl. Once the icing is completely cool, it will set and be fine for serving. (If this seems too stressful, switch to a basic confectioners' icing - 2 cups sugar + 2-3 tbsp milk + 1/4 tsp cinnamon. Whisk and add more sugar or milk as needed to make a thick glaze.)
  • Note that the icing is not going to work its way down the side the cake the way a standard confectioners' sugar icing will. Where you put this icing is where it will be so be ready to give it a drizzled look by looping it over the sides of the cake.
  • My icing recipe come from Martha Stewart's Brown Butter Glaze (with a few changes).