Triple Chocolate Bundt Cake
March 14, 2012 by alysha
I’m the first person to admit that I’m not a baker. Or much of a cook for that matter. I’m not just being modest here…just ask my husband. 
So when I discover a recipe that is: #1 easy, #2 delicious, and #3 easy, I hang on to that bad boy.
Truthfully, I find most cakes dry and tasteless, unless it’s an ice cream cake of course. But the first time I tried this, I was hooked! I got the recipe from my sister in law’s friend’s friend, who probably got it from another friend… Yep, it’s that good. So now I’m sharing it with you.
Plus it has 3 times the chocolate. So it’s definitely a keeper.
Start out by pouring a chocolate cake mix into your mixing bowl. Easy. Check.
Add a box of instant chocolate pudding. Don’t skip this. It helps make the cake really moist, which is why I like it.
Next, add the secret ingredient. One cup SOUR CREAM. I know, didn’t see this one coming. Don’t worry, I promise it won’t make your cake taste sour.
In fact, not only does it add even more moisture, it really helps bring out the rich flavor.
Add 4 eggs, 3/4 cup water, and 3/4 oil, and mix all the ingredients well.
Next, let’s add more chocolate. Why not?
Pour in chocolate chips.
I had some extra help from a little friend… Not quite all of the chocolate chips made it into the batter.
After you’ve mixed in your chocolate chips, pour batter into a WELL GREASED bundt pan.
Even if you have a non-stick pan, you will need to grease it, trust me. I’ve learned this the hard way. You will have a not-so-attractive cake if you don’t.
I’ve found that greasing the pan with Pam for baking works great, or shortening works really well too.
Bake the cake on 2nd to bottom rack for 40-50 minutes at 350 degrees. I usually check mine after 40 minutes, and if it’s not quite done when I do the toothpick check, I re-check every 2 minutes.
When it’s done, remove it from the oven and let the cake cool COMPLETELY in the pan. Take a small slender spatula or knife and loosen cake around the outside & inside edges.
Next, tip the cake upside down onto a platter.
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Let’s add more chocolate shall we? While the cake is cooking, you can whip up the drizzle to put on top.
For that you will need:
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 cup powdered sugar
¼ teaspoon vanilla
1-2 tablespoons milk
2 tablespoons melted butter
Mix together the ingredients. Stir forever, until it’s smooth and thick. If it’s not runny enough, add a bit of warm water or more melted butter until it’s at the consistency you like.
Drizzle over the top of the cake. That’s always the funnest part!
If you want, sprinkle powdered sugar over the icing.
Add any other embelishments you’d like. Raspberries are my latest love. Strawberries taste great with it as well.
I decided to add some mint leaves to it. Mostly because they smell awesome and look pretty.
Mmm. SO good.
Whip this up for a low-key birthday party, or a fancy dinner, and impress your neighbors with your culinary skills. (We won’t tell anyone you used a cake mix.)
Ingredients
- Cake recipe recap:
- Chocolate Cake Mix (I prefer devil food cake, but any cake mix will do.)
- Chocolate Instant Pudding
- 4 eggs
- 1 cup sour cream
- ¾ cup water
- ¾ cup oil
- 1 bag chocolate chips (I prefer about half a bag of milk-chocolate.)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Mix all ingredients well and pour batter into a well-greased bundt pan.
- Bake on 2nd to bottom rack for 40-50 minutes.
- Remove from oven; let cake cool completely in pan.
- Take a small slender spatula and loosen cake around the outside & inside edges.
- Tip upside down onto platter.
- Cake can be refrigerated & removed prior to serving or tastes just as good chilled.
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TA-DA! And there you have it. One of the easiest recipes known to man. I hope you enjoy it! But be careful, you’ll never go back to plain ‘ole cake again.
Forget diamonds. CHOCOLATE is a girl’s best friend.
Bon-Appetit!
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Oh my goodness. It is 2 in the morning and my mouth is watering for this. Thanks a lot Alysha!
It looks delicious…I can’t wait to try it!
I have been using this recipe for a few years. I found it on all recipes bu it was called too much chocolate cake. Everytime i go somewhere…everyone asks me to make this cake! I love your blog
Wow!! That’s all I can say. It look amazing!
Oh boy. I’d like this for breakfast! YUM.
SOUR CREAM! Genius! How did I not know about this? This cake looks simply gorgeous. Thanks for sharing!
ANY baked good with sour cream in it is a favorite with me. It totally ups the moisture factor, which I too enjoy. I will definitely be trying this version of a chocolate cake – we’ll see if it tops my current sour scream chocolate cake recipe
I used to make this cake when I sold Pampered Chef and we would make it in a bundt stone and microwave it. It is wonderful. I would also drizzle white powdered sugar frosting over it then chocolate syrup, and chopped pecans. I may have to make this very soon.
What size of pudding box? Large or small? I can’t wait to get all the ingredients and try this one. (I am drooling as I write!)
Great question! The original recipe called for a small box, however I sent my husband to the store for ingredients, and he bought the large box and I used it with this cake. It still tasted great.
mmmmm. and your pictures are beautiful. You made something that is usually boring look so beautiful.
Oh my oh my! This looks delish! I would have never guessed about the sour cream!
PS-Those photo’s are A.mazing.
I used this recipe, sort of, today with a yellow cake mix. I wanted to dye the cupcakes green for St Patty’s Day party, SO I used yellow cake, vanilla pudding, the other ingredients, and omitted the chocolate (cause I was too lazy to go looking for white and I don’t love them anyway). Anywho, pleased to report, as I am not a cake fan either, they were yummy!
Woohoo! I love how you changed things up and did yellow cake.
I’m glad you liked them!
Have fun with your St. Patrick’s Day party!
Does this cake have to be refridgerated?
Hi Kristin! It definitely doesn’t need to be, but if you are making the cake a day or two before you plan on eating it, i would refrigerate it. And then do the drizzle part right before you want to serve it. It actually tastes really good chilled. Hope this helps!
Oh. My. Heck. These pictures make me want to run to the store and make this cake right now. Seriously. I might.
I am going to make this for church “eatin’ meetin’” tomorrow! Do I use the entire bag of chocolate chips or just half a bag? Thanks!
Hi Lynda! I prefer half a bag, but you can use as many as you’d like.
OMG, OMG, OMG!
I made this last night and it was SO SUPER OMG! Definately will make again and again!
YAY! Thanks for taking the time to let me know how it turned out! So glad you liked it.
I just put this in the oven :=)
I have used another recipe similar to this on all recipes and it was great! Looking forward to having a slice of this one tonight!! Thanks for the recipe!
Hi Alysha! I was super excited to try this cake! However… a word of warning… if you live at high altitude, it doesn’t work as written. Anyone who lives above 5,000 feet needs to adjust it for altitude. I usually do this by adding up to a quarter cup of flour to the dry ingredients.
Thanks so much for sharing!!!!!!!
Hi Deena! Thanks for pointing that out! I actually live in Denver where the altitude is pretty high, and I didn’t adjust it with this recipe and it still worked well. But I’m sure it’s different for everyone. Let me know what works for you!
This is my all time favorite cake! My husband makes it for me on my b-day! I couldn’t believe the ingredients the first time I made it. (I got the recipe from my mom.) However my ingredients are a bit different from this recipe–I use 1/4 cup mayo and 3/4 cup sour cream!
This recipe has been handed down in my family for at least 3 generations, it is now one of my husband’s favorites!
I’ve been making this recipe for YEARS….I can’t even remember where I got it! But it is SO yummy. I know people may not like the amount of oil used, but it really is needed. I first made this as-is, then I started to try and tweak it to make it a little healthier. In all honesty, the original recipe has by far been the best. The only thing I do differently is I use mini chocolate chips. They distribute a little more evenly. I use a whole bag of mini’s. Also, most of the time I just dust it with powdered sugar and put a few raspberries and mint leaves around the bottom and it looks very pretty! Definitely a recipe that needs to be shared – SO YUMMY!
I make this cake quite often. The great thing about it, is that it can be changed up quite a bit to suit your liking. You can use any cake mix flavor you like, along with your choice of pudding flavor and whatever “topping” you like. I’ve used, spice cake mix with vanilla pudding and added cinnamon chips. I’ve also done, chocolate cake, with coconut pudding, substituted coconut milk for the water and coconut flakes, to make a mounds cake. You can use strawbery cake, cheesecake pudding and white chocolate chips, then serve with whipped cream and graham cracker crumbs to make a strawberry cheesecake cake.
The variations are only limited to your imagination. Lemon, coconut, pistachio, cherry, carrot……
Does this cake HAVE to be refrigerated, or can it be on the counter even with the sour cream?
Why can’t I “Pin It”?
This is the only chocolate cake we have at our home! It’s the best!!!! Now, I am going to bake one!
This recipe sounds fabulous! Thank you for sharing. Question – how do you print only the recipe?
Cheers!
Sheree
Love this recipe… just put a version of it in the form of cupcakes in the oven! A yummy variation – to up the chocolate factor just a little bit, substitute some (or all) of the water for an equivalent amount of coffee (or add a Tbsp of instant coffee). And, if you have self-control, I think the flavor is improved the second day
YUM!
That looks sooooooooo good! I have always used pudding for cake mix, it’s a trick my dad taught me in high school. The sour cream is new to me though can’t wait to try it!
Thanks for the awesome recipe! I can’t wait to try it!
Thanks for your wonderful recipes and ideas. I will be making this cake for Easter. I love the dinner roll recipe. Everyone thinks I make the very best dinner rolls ever. Thanks to you.
You are the best! I’ve gotten so many great ideas and recipes from you. My family, friends and i thank-you.
This is really similar to a recipe that Sandra Lee uses from her Semi-homemade series. One of her recipes that I have used for years uses about 1 cup of finely grated zucinni in it. I know it sounds weird, but it makes the cake so super moist, and you can brag (after it is eaten) that there was a hidden vegetable in it! Everyone I tell never seems to care, because the cake tastes so good!
I love, love, love your site and could get lost in it for hours and hours. Thanks for the hard work to share such wonderful ideas.
I do have one suggestion – it would be nice to be able to print the recipes on one page instead of pages and pages due to the pictures you include. I love seeing the pictures as you tell about the recipe but to have the option to print just the test would be great!
Thanks for your hard work!
Connie in north Florida
Thank you for your sweet comment. We are actually working on updating all of our recipes to be printer friendly.
Hold that thought…. 
The cake is on the plate w/icing (I doubled the drizzle recipe, my family loves chocolate). Made it for Mother’s Day lunch!
This cake looks amazing! However, I have a question before I try it….I live at 9000 feet elevation. Should I make the high altitude adjustments listed on cake mix box? Thanks in advance!
This is a fantastic cake! It used to be my ‘go-to’ birthday cake….until I had a child with an egg allergy!
Believe it or not. i think this is a retired Pampered chef recipe if you could trace it’s roots. I actually demonstrated the stoneware bundt pan using this recipe. I am glad to find this recipe though, as I had forgotten it. THANKS! I remember how good it was and how everyone wanted the recipe to take home! I will make this for something a little different for Thanksgiving!
I have this sitting in the oven as we type, I can’t wait to test it out this holiday season…its looks so yummy!
Absolutely love this recipe! this cake is AMAZING. i renamed it Chocolate Lava bundt cake, because it tastes just like the lava cakes you get in restaurants!! I’ve baked it once and my 5 year old niece was begging me for THIRDS! she said “This family is full of chocoholics.” hahahah.
as i’m typing to you, i’m making 2 of these for Thanksgiving tomorrow. They will probably be a hit! i’m sure of it. I went to the store and bought the ingredients but forgot cake mix -___- so i’m making homemade cake mix! should be great, wish meh luckkk
thanks for sharing.i’ve got it pinned on pinterest for life
This looks gorgeous and I want to make it for Christmas….do you have any suggestions on how to alter the recipe for high altitude baking? We’re in Northern Arizona at 6000 feet.
Thanks
I know this is an older post and this comment may not be read but ..
I highly recommend that you use butter/flour combo for your pans. The non-stick spray (what it appears you used) will create a build-up in the pan making it stickier the more you use it. We don’t want that! Use a greased/floured pan and you should be fine.
On that note, you shouldn’t need to use a spatula to release the cake. Here is what I do, I run hot hot water over a towel in my sink and a minute or two after I remove my cake from the over I place it (bottom side down) on the hot towel. I let it sit for a minute or two and them I place a plate over the top and invert it. It always comes out perfectly. I’ve never had to pry out a cake.
This was a 10!