Bloody Cake: Quite accidentally

I decided to hop on the bandwagon of scary foods for Halloween, even thought it has historically not been my favorite holiday for which to prepare foods.  I don't generally love eating foods that look scary, gross, or unusual even though they might taste good.  It's just one of my things.

However, inadvertently, without any intention, I made this bundt cake which very much turned out to be a scary Halloween dish.  I didn't meant it to, but the raspberry glaze ended up transforming a very pretty bundt into a very scary blood soaked one, and so I thought - ah....my first accidental Halloween dish.

So let me encourage you to make the scariest dish this Halloween by making this blood drenched cake.  You could call it a bloody heart or even a bloody brain.  Take your pick.  At any rate, it looks super scary but tastes way delicious.  Don't let the bloody look of it scare you off the actual eating of the cake itself.   Enjoy this bloody cake on Halloween and on other days, as long as you can forget the bloody look of it.

Chocolate Raspberry Bundt Soaked in Raspberry Syrup
Makes 10-inch bundt cake, serving 12 to 14

Ingredients
Cake
3 cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 ¾ cups granulated sugar
4 large eggs, room temperature
2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup sour cream
6 oz fresh raspberries, picked over
½ cup dark chocolate pieces (I got mine at Whole Foods which was 73% cacao, and Ghiradelli’s makes
a chip that is 60% cacao) A bar of dark chocolate can also be cut into small pieces and used.

Raspberry Syrup
⅔ cup of sugar
6 oz of raspberries, washed and picked over, pureed and strained (makes about ½ cup)
2 tablespoons orange juice

Method
Place rack in center of oven, and preheat oven to 350. Grease and lightly flour inside of 10 inch bundt pan.

Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a large bowl. Set aside.
Using either a stand mixer (paddle attachment) or a hand mixer, beat the butter at medium speed until creamy, about 2 minutes. Gradually add sugar and beat at medium-high speed until the mixture is light in texture and color, about 3 minutes. Beat in eggs one at a time, beating for 30 to 40 seconds after each addition. Scrape down sides of bowl as necessary. Beat in vanilla extract. At low speed, add flour mixture in three additions, alternating with sour cream. (Add a bit of flour, a bit of sour cream, a bit of flour, a bit of sour cream, a bit of flour.) Remove bowl from mixer. Using a spatula, carefully fold in both raspberries and chocolate pieces. It is okay if the raspberries get a bit crushed and crumbled. Scoop batter into pan and spread evenly with spatula.

Bake cake for 50 to 60 minutes, or until a tooth pick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool the cake in the pan on a cooling rack for 10 minutes, then invert it onto another rack which is placed on top of a cookie sheet. (You’ll be able to soak the cake in syrup without the syrup being stuck all over your kitchen counter.)

While cake is baking, make syrup. Combine sugar, strained raspberry puree and orange juice in a saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves, 3 to 4 minutes. Remove pan from heat. Using a pastry brush, dab syrup generously all over surface of the warm cake, allowing it to soak into the cake before reapplying. Let the cake cool completely.

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