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.
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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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.
I gave it a try and it is simply amazing. For a chocolate and cheesecake lover like me this is the perfect combination of both.
I was looking at similar recipes on Pinterest and found a cream cheese filling that was the same except it called for 2 TBS instead of 2 tsp of flour. Maybe that is why so many people who made this had a runny cream cheese filling??? My oven is just 2 years old, it took me 65 minutes to cook this bundt cake @ 350′.
I used my original bundt pan from the 70’s and it also ran over. Next time I will not fill the pan so full.
My cake came out great after setting for 10 minutes after baking. I brushed the bundt pan completely with soft butter, floured generously, and gently shook out the excess flour.
I tried this today and it was AMAZING! And the smell! 😀 Thank you <3
Your PINTEREST BUTTON doesn’t work. Can you fix it so I can pin this recipe and others.
Just made this last weekend and it was outstanding! My cheesecake layer was a little thinner but still a great contrast for such a moist deep chocolate cake, and the ganache was the perfect compliment. I will definitely be trying your other recipes.
Thank you Tessa
Turned out well though not as pretty as the picture. My cream cheese was not all encased in the chocolate. But it’s delicious and was a hit at my daughter’s birthday party.
Prep time of 20 min….lol. Took me about 45! Baking right now, pretty sure the cream cheese filling won’t be a surprise on my cake, unless the glaze covers it up. It was impossible for me to not let that amount of filling get to the edges. Crossing my fingers for something that turns out! Planning to store in the freezer for a day as I needed to make it 1.5 days ahead of time and glaze the day of.
Did the folks whose filling was a bit thin use fat free cream cheese? That will make a huge difference in the consistency.
Hello, i tried making this cake twice now. Both times following your directions. The first time i baked it it was late and i left it cool in the pan overnight. When i took it out in the morning, half the cake was stuck in my pan. I thought it was because i left it in the pan too long. This time i baked it and turned it out after 10 minutes like the recipe states and it still cracked and could not be used. I sprayed pan both times really good, please help!
Sounds like your bundt pan isn’t nonstick, or maybe its nonstick coating has lost its effectiveness? I’d try greasing it in every cranny with the spray by using a pastry brush. It may just be time for a new pan?
Hi! The cake looks so delish! I will try it this weekend for my brother-in-law’s birthday. I was thinking of baking it in a regular round pan instead of a bundt pan. Can I use a regular round pan and what size should I use? Thank you!
Hello! This recipe was specifically developed for a bundt pan, so I’m not sure if or how another size & shape of pan will work. If you give it a try let us know how it goes!
I’d love to know if you tried this out with a regular round cake tin since that’s all I’ve got and am wondering if it would work.
I like to print out the recipes I try out, but when I printed the bundt cake recipe something weird happened. I jumped to the recipe and clicked on print. The version that printed out was missing several sentences which caused me to panic a bit when I went to make the cake and there was nothing mentioned about where to add the eggs and sour cream! I did manage to figure it out. The printed version on paper did NOT match what my print screen showed—never saw this before. Looked like you edited the recipe to fix it, for the print version, but did not “save”. Hope no one else struggled with the recipe because of this.
This cake is really good. I reduced about 1/2 cup of the sugar as we don’t really like too sweet. It turned out well. Did not have problem with the cheese filling. It set well after the cake is cooled. The batter is a lot I had to make some into mini muffin. This recipe is a keeper. Tq for sharing your wonderful recipe Tessa.