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,
This recipe calls for dutch processed cocoa and baking soda. I read somewhere that dutch processed cocoa is usually paired with baking powder for leavening. Is there any truth to this?
Such a beautiful cake! What lovely flavors MasterRusk
Hi all,
I made this cake today and it’s so beautiful and taste great even thou you can’t really taste the cream cheese, so my advise is double the CC. I followed the recipe exactly and the cheese was a bit runny, but I put it in the fridge till I was ready for it and spooned it onto the bottom batter and it turned out great…. I only used spray and it never stuck once. Thank you Tessa I am trying to post picture.
Sorry, but the cheese filling part was annoying as hell you could’ve suggested a piping bag which is what I think you used..and the measurements feel like they are way too much???. Too calorie heavy and complicated for no reason, I get that it’s dessert but the taste is not to die for. Will not make again.
Suggestions. 1…spray the pan well and then powder it with flour or cocoa powder..
my delicious cake stuck to the bottom of the pan when ot was done. ( I knew this but …DUHHH I followed the recipe.)
2. For a 10 cup Bundt pan, bake it 60-65 minutes.
3. Add a couple teaspoons of lemon juice to the cheesecake filling.
I made this for a coworker’s birthday. It was good but mine turned out a bit dry and the cheesecake filling was dry. I’m not sure what I did wrong but I’m going to try it again because it was good enough to want to see if I can do better. Thank you for the recipe!
I just baked this cake for my husband’s birthday. It’s cooling now so I can’t comment on the taste but I made it exactly as written. My batter wasn’t runny, my cream cheese mixture was easy to put in and it cooked for only 5 minutes longer than suggested. The prep took me a while as I am not a experienced with baking in any way.
I didn’t have the problems others had and right now it looks perfect. I can’t wait to surprise him tonight when he cuts it open!
Hi Tessa- just saw this recipe for the time. It says 1 1/2 sticks butter (6 oz) wouldn’t that be 12 oz since one stick equals 8 oz? Thanks!
1 stick is 4 ounces!
I made this cake exactly as written. It was for my husband’s birthday. It was incredible!!! OMG! Worth the effort! Only problem, it is dangerous if you are watching your waist 🙂 Share it. YUM!
I was worried about some of the issues others were having, but I took a chance on this. I’m glad it did, it turned out delicious! I swirled some cherry preserves into the cheesecake to add a little extra pizzazz. I also had the issue with there being more cake than pan, and it baked for about 75 minutes, but it came out well, and it was done all the way through. Thanks for sharing this recipe!
Just made this cake and followed the recipe exactly. Too much batter for the pan so it overflowed a bit. Although toothpick came out dry and top of cake was almost burnt, when I turned the cake over after cooling a bit, it pretty much fell apart and was goppy in middle including cheesecake filling – it was significantly undercooked.
I have it in the freezer now trying to firm it up before trying to camouflage it with the chocolate glaze but I’m not optimistic. Seems to taste wonderful from the gop I got on my hands trying to shape it up but there’s something wrong with the cook time. I make a lot of cakes and haven’t ever had this happen to me before.
This cake looks and tastes awesome! After reading all of the comments I used a chocolate cake mix and added about 3/4 cup sour cream. I followed the filling recipe but added the 2 Tbs flour others recommended. I received rave reviews from my dinner guests! The cake was super moist and there’s plenty of cheesecake filling. Thanks for everyone’s suggestions!