Chocolate-Pistachio Bundt Cake

I’m a serious nutrition label reader. I fervently believe in living sustainably and shopping at farmers markets. Yet I ignore all this when it comes to this one cake. It’s inexplicable, but delicious.

Yield: Makes 12 to 14 servings

Ingredients

1 box white or yellow cake mix

1 box pistachio instant pudding mix

1/2 cup orange juice

1/2 cup water

4 large eggs

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 teaspoon almond extract

3/4 cup chocolate syrup

Confectioners’ sugar (optional)

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 12-cup Bundt pan (or a 10-inch tube pan).

In a mixing bowl, combine the cake mix, pudding mix, orange juice, water, eggs, oil and almond extract. With an electric mixer, blend at low speed until moist. Beat for an additional 3 minutes at medium speed, scraping the bowl occasionally, until well blended.

Pour about two-thirds of the batter into the pan. Add the chocolate syrup to the remaining one-third of the batter. Mix well. Pour over the batter in the pan. Run a knife through the batter to marble it.

Bake for 1 hour. Allow the cake to cool in the pan for 15 minutes. Loosen cake with a blunt knife and turn onto a cake plate. Sprinkle with confectioners’ sugar, if desired.

Recipe by Bonny Wolf from Talking With My Mouth Full: Crab Cakes, Bundt Cakes, and Other Kitchen Stories (St. Martin’s, 2006)