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.
This post may contain affiliate links. Read our disclosure policy.
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.
Free Baking Science Mini-Course!
From cookies that spread to undercooked brownies, this FREE 5-day Baking Science course helps you conquer common baking challenges and make bakery-worthy treats every time.
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.
More Recipes You’ll Love:
Cheesecake Filled Chocolate Bundt Cake
Email This Recipe
Enter your email, and we’ll send it to your inbox.
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.
The Ultimate Cookie Handbook
Learn the sweet SCIENCE of cookie baking in a fun, visual way to customize your own recipes frustration-free. Plus, my best 50+ homemade cookies!
My name is Jose I’ve been around my mother in the kitchen always looking at her cook,,,,,I took a liking to the kitchen and started cooking at the age of 13yrs old,,, God I love cooking with a passion and like trying new things as well,,I Google pastry baking and came upon your post of chocolate cheesecake,,,,WOW my compliments go out to you,,,I tried it and believe me it didn’t last on the plate,,,as soon as I took it out of the pan and glazed it with strawberry icing and low and behold,,,,I had to make another one my kid’s went crazzzzzy over that cake,,,,thank you very much for sharing you recipe with everyone,,, sincerely yours,,,Jose..
It took longer than 20 minutes to prepare. It definitely had to bake longer than 50 minutes. It was more like 70 minutes. You have to let the cake cool longer than 10 minutes more like 20 minutes before turning over on a plate.
Made this yesterday for my sister’s birthday. Unfortunately, I forgot to turn the oven timer on and baked it a tich too long, so it was a bit on the dry side (totally my fault, not the recipe). It turned out of the pan beautifully and the chocolatey goodness was deep, dark and decedent. Even my nephew, who is not a dessert guy, went back for a second piece. This one is a keeper. I just have to remember not to forget it’s in the oven!
How would I adjust the recipe to use the mini bundt pan?
It was a huge hit. I made it for my husband’s b’day. He is not a fan of sweets, so it is always a challenge to find a good cake recipe. I read a few of the comments, so didn’t put all of the batter in my pan…just eyeballed it and it came out perfect. I didn’t read all of the comments soon enough though and some of my cake did stick to the pan (read later to oil AND flour the pan, I had just used spray, per the directions). I just put the pieces back where they belonged and covered it up with glaze. It is a delicious, moist and rich cake. Definitely a hit.
Mine is in the oven, so can’t comment on the final results, but if you want to lay your filling in prettily, put it in a ziplock bag and cut the corner off, so you can pipe it in, exactly where you want it to be, like a cake decorator does.
Hey, it looks like we are eating cheese burst cake. beautiful
thank you for sharing
Chose to make this for my daughter’s birthday and it was a hit! Everybody loved it.
Hi Tessa. Just made this yesterday afternoon. It was fun to make. May I suggest something to readers.? When ready to put cake batter in bundt pan, I used a small ladle. Get your favorite ladle and put part of cake batter in pan. Then I used a spoon to put the filling in. I made a well with the small spoon all the way around the pan. Fill it with the filling. Then back to ladle to add rest of cake batter. Now, for me, and husband, there is a lot of chocolate going on, I really couldn’t taste the cheesecake batter with the cake. I needed a stronger flavor. But, it looks pretty. I would give this recipe 4 stars, because the cheesecake batter wasn’t strong enough, cannot taste it. Have fun making this!
The cake is very moist and delicious. Can i use the same quantity if i want o use a round tin instead of a bundt tin? what size round tin do you recommend and how long should i cook it for?
Will this work to make into cupcakes. Looks divine but I need to make cupcakes
Thank you for your blog. Love it
Hi tessa! Can i make this ahead? How do i store it if it will be consumed the next day?