Tessa’s Recipe Rundown
Taste: Tons of rich chocolate, with a surprise of tangy cheesecake goodness!
Texture: Moist, light, and fluffy, with a luscious cheesecake filling and wonderfully fudgy chocolate glaze.
Ease: Simple and fun to make!
Pros: Deliciously decadent twist on a classic cake.
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Cheesecake Filled Chocolate Bundt Cake is pure decadence in cake form.
The only thing that could possibly improve a rich, moist, ultra-chocolaty bundt cake? A secret cheesecake filling.
Finished with the fudgiest chocolate glaze you’ve ever tried, this showstopping bundt cake is as gorgeous as it is indulgent.
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Holly on Instagram made this recipe and says, “The deep chocolate flavor pairs perfectly with the tangy cream cheese.” Check out her gorgeous photo:
This Cheesecake-Filled Chocolate Bundt Cake is what dessert dreams are made of. I hope you love it as much as I do!
Sprinkle of Science
How to Make Cheesecake-Filled Chocolate Bundt Cake
How to Make MOIST Cake
- Measure your flour correctly. Accidentally adding too much flour will yield a dense, dry, or crumbly cake. Use the spoon and level method to measure your dry ingredients.
- Brown sugar. Brown sugar adds more moisture than granulated sugar. Whatever you do, do not reduce the amount of sugar in this recipe – learn why here.
- Eggs. This cake contains 5 eggs for richness, fudginess, moisture, and structure. I do not recommend using egg substitutes. Use room-temperature eggs to ensure they blend smoothly into the batter, and use large eggs, about 56 grams in shell. Smaller or larger eggs will yield a different result.
- Sour cream. This helps make the cake more tender and fudgy and activates the baking soda. Be sure to use full-fat sour cream at room temperature. Full-fat plain yogurt will work as a substitute.
- The cocoa powder. More on this just below.
The Cocoa Powder
I recommend using Dutch processed cocoa powder, for an intense but smooth chocolate flavor. I particularly love Guittard or Penzey’s Dutch cocoa powder products.
Dutch-process cocoa powder also typically has a higher fat content compared to grocery store natural cocoa powder products. The latter is often chalky and zaps moisture in your cakes. Learn more about Natural vs. Dutched cocoa powders here.
If you must, you can use natural cocoa powder with as a 1:1 substitute. Note that the color, texture, and chocolate flavor will change.
The Chocolate
This cake batter contains bittersweet baking chocolate for richness AND Dutch-process cocoa powder for tons of pure chocolate flavor.
The fudgy chocolate glaze uses melted semi-sweet chocolate. Feel free to use milk or bittersweet chocolate, if you prefer – just note that this will alter the overall sweetness of the ganache. Learn more about Chocolate in Baking here.
Note: Avoid using chocolate chips in place of freshly chopped baking chocolate, they don’t melt down as smoothly and won’t incorporate into the batter quite as evenly.
The Espresso Powder
Espresso powder helps enhance the chocolate flavor! The hint of espresso enhances the chocolate flavor without actually tasting like coffee.
You can also use strong hot coffee instead. You can also omit it, if preferred.
Use the Right Pan!
This recipe uses a 9.51-inch bundt pan, like this one. If your pan is a little larger, that’s fine, but don’t use a smaller pan as the cake will overflow.
How to Prevent Cheesecake-Filled Chocolate Bundt Cake From Sticking to the Pan
- Coat the bundt pan with melted shortening and work it into every nook and cranny with a silicone pastry brush right before pouring the batter into the pan. If this is done too early, the grease will slide down the sides of the pan and leave you with an uneven coating.
- Alternatively, use Baker’s Joy spray. While I don’t prefer to use nonstick sprays because they can damage the nonstick coating on baking pans over time, Baker’s Joy does work well. It just may reduce the lifetime of your pan.
- Check out my article on How to Prevent Bundt Cake from Sticking for more tips.
How to Store
Store this cake inside an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days. We have not tried freezing this cake.
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Cheesecake Filled Chocolate Bundt Cake
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Ingredients
For the filling:
- 8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
- 1/2 cup (100 grams) granulated sugar
- 1 large egg, at room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 teaspoons all-purpose flour
For the cake:
- 3/4 cup (75 grams) unsweetened cocoa powder, preferably Dutch-processed
- 6 ounces (170 grams) bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
- 1 tablespoon espresso powder
- 3/4 cup (177 grams) boiling water
- 1 3/4 cups (222 grams) all-purpose flour, measured correctly
- 1 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 cup (228 grams) sour cream, at room temperature
- 1 1/2 sticks (170 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 2 cups (400 grams) packed light brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon vanilla
- 5 large eggs, at room temperature
For the glaze:
- 1/2 cup (119 grams) heavy cream
- 2 teaspoons corn syrup
- 4 ounces (113 grams) semisweet chocolate, chopped
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Spray a bundt pan with nonstick cooking spray.
For the filling:
- In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese and sugar until well combined. Add the egg, vanilla, and flour until well combined. Set aside.
For the cake:
- Combine the cocoa, chocolate, and espresso powder in a large bowl. Pour the boiling water into the bowl and cover. Let stand for 5 minutes. Meanwhile, in a small bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, and baking soda and set aside.
- Whisk the chocolate mixture until it is smooth. Let cool to room temperature. When it has cooled, whisk in the sour cream.
- In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter, brown sugar, and vanilla for about 3 minutes, or until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, until combined. On low speed, gradually add the flour mixture and the cooled melted chocolate mixture alternatively, beginning and ending with the flour, until the batter is smooth.
- Pour a little more than half the batter into the prepared pan. Pour the cheesecake filling into the center of the batter, not allowing it to touch the edges of the pan. Pour the remaining batter of the filling.
- Bake the cake for about 50 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out with moist crumbs. Let cool on a rack for 10 minutes, then turn the cake out and let cool completely.
For the glaze:
- In a small saucepan, heat the cream and corn syrup over medium heat until hot. Remove from heat and add the chocolate, whisking until smooth. Let cool slightly until thickened. Drizzle over the cake. Let the glaze set at room temperature, about 10 minutes, before serving.
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Hi Tessa!
Great looking yummy cheesecake filled chocolate bundt cake! I find 12 servings is too much unless I am baking for a large get together. Can I divide this recipe in half and make it in a 6 cup bundt pan? Also what would the baking time be? Thanks for answering my questions!
I’m not sure, Melanie. Never tried that. I would start at half and just keep a watchful eye on it with a cake tester close by. Good luck!
I was glad to see some other comments about the bake time. I’m at about 65 minutes and counting. Smells great, though 🙂
The cake is baking in the oven. I am going to serve it tomorrow evening at my dinner party. Should I go ahead and glaze it tonight or wait until tomorrow afternoon? Should I refrigerate it?
Hi, Pam! I’m sorry I can’t always get to comments every day. I hope it all turned out 🙂 It should have worked either way, but I’d recommend refrigerating after glazing.
I have made this cake twice in the past three weeks. I have read where people have had trouble with this recipe with interest. I just made my second one, which is sitting on the counter ready to be enjoyed at our Easter family dinner tomorrow. It is truly one of the moistest cakes we have ever eaten. Now, here comes the truth. I used a boxed-mix, only I added the sour-cream to the mix. Followed the rest of your directions. Oh, one more thing I did differently was I used ready made icing that I micro-waved to thin it out and drizzled over the cooled cake twice! OMG! The cream-cheese filling is delicious…
Cake complete have not tried but the cheesecake part was very runny and it was not over beaten. The glaze us not thick either. Is the recipe missing something? Smells good.
I baked the cake, and it turned out great. Everyone could not stop raving about it. The only problem I had though, was when I removed the bunt pan from the oven for the cake to cool, the cake collapsed a little bit. How can I prevent this from happening?
Made this for my daughter-in-law’s birthday and family get together. It is a beautiful and delicious decadent cake and a recipe I will repeat often for my chocolate-lover family members.
Wonderful, Donna! Happy to hear it.
Hi Tessa! I am somewhat new to your site, I found you through your homemade fudge round recipe (that was fantastic by the way!) My cake is currently in the oven, however, I am having the same issues as many others above, and I am not exactly a novice baker. My cheesecake mix was very runny. About twice as liquidy as a regular cheesecake mix. I am wondering your thoughts on this. Do you think maybe it is over-mixing? Or could it be the egg and vanilla ratio to the flour and cream cheese? My last thought was temperature, maybe the cream cheese should start out on the colder side of room temperature, rather than actual room temperature. I also used a room temperature egg, I grabbed it from the pile of other room temperature eggs. I would love to know your thoughts! Thanks!
I don’t have espresso powder, any recommendations? I hate to have to buy ingredients I will only use once.
You can just omit it!
Wonderful recipe! Thank you so much. The filling dropped a bit but does not affect the taste or appearance of the cake. Baking time was 80 minutes as opposed to 50 but every oven is different. It really is delicious as well as beautiful and I will definitely make it again.
I made this today for my husband’s birthday. The cake came out really delicious and moist. However, I was disappointed in how the cheesecake part came out. In the picture, there’s a nice portion of cheesecake. But in my cake, the cheesecake portion is maybe half as thick as in the picture. Maybe next time I will double the cheesecake portion of the recipe. The chocolate part of the cake is yummy, though! Dense, yet still fluffy and very moist! Glaze is great and shiny.
May I ask, what size bundt form did you use?
Wanted to surprise my wife for her birthday so my sons and I followed this to the letter and the unveiling was a disaster! Some came out then more came out then half the cheesecake came out… What a lame recipe