Chocolate Chip Cake with Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge Icing

This easy Chocolate Chip Bundt Cake is extra soft and fluffy, with the most delicious balance of chocolate chips and buttery cake.

Topped with Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge Icing, it's the kind of crowd pleasing cake recipe that's perfect for nearly any occasion. 

"You're right, this cake is super fluffy and moist! I used regular-sized chocolate chips and I like the idea of the mini ones better. Will try that next time... because there will be a next time! PS: It is equally good without the frosting if you aren't a huge (gasp!) fan of chocolate!" - Cindy

The recipe is the result of weeks worth of testing and tweaking until I had a recipe that achieved the three things I wanted in a Chocolate Chip Cake:

1. It has a super soft, fluffy, tender texture.
2. It has the perfect ratio of buttery, vanilla cake to chocolate chips. 
3. It's easy to make, easy to decorate, and easy to transport anywhere, anytime.

This is the kind of simple, crowd-pleasing recipe that's firmly in the category of things like Chocolate Chip Cookies and Brownies - always a good idea and guaranteed to please pretty much everyone all the time.

It's the kind of cake that requires a handful of basic ingredients and very little effort, yet manages to deliver BIG on flavor, and comfort, and YUM.

Ingredients for this chocolate chip cake:

• Cake flour (or all-purpose flour and cornstarch)
• Baking powder
• Salt
• Butter
• Sugar
• Eggs
• Vanilla 
• Buttermilk. If you don't have any buttermilk, here are several ways to make homemade buttermilk.
• Mini chocolate chips
• Heavy whipping cream
• Peanut butter (for the icing)

My favorite part of this cake is the texture. Every bite is soft, buttery, fluffy, and tender. It's rich without being heavy. Flavorful without being complicated. Simple without being boring. 

"A delicious dessert, and very easy to make! I loved the addition of the whipped cream folded into the batter - it really did make a soft, light, moist, flavorful cake. I never would have thought of trying that. Good tip Rebecca!" - Valerie

What Makes this Recipe Work

#1. Cake Flour

Cake flour is made from soft winter wheat and milled to be softer, lighter, and finer than all-purpose flour. It's not as dense as all-purpose flour and has a lower protein content.

The low protein content of cake flour means less gluten development. Less gluten = a light, soft, and tender texture. 

#2. Whipped Cream

Folding some whipped cream into cake batter is a genius baking trick I learned from BakingWise by Shirley O. Corriher. When folded gently into the batter right before baking, whipped cream adds additional fat and air - both of which contribute to the cake's soft, silky texture.

It's a technique I've relied on in several recipes (like my favorite Red Velvet Cake) to create a super soft, fluffy cake that's rich and flavorful while also remaining light and airy.

After mixing up the batter, whip half a cup of heavy whipping cream until you can lift the beaters from the cream to create little whipped cream peaks that hold their shape. Then, very gently, fold the whipped cream into the cake batter.

#3. Room temperature ingredients

At room temperature, when you beat eggs and dairy with an electric mixer, they form an emulsion that traps air. As the cake bakes, all that trapped air expands in the oven, giving the cake a fluffy consistency. 

Using room temperature ingredients also creates a uniform texture so that the cake is soft and fluffy throughout, from the crust to the center. So, when a recipe like this one calls for room temperature ingredients, pay attention. It really does matter.

To bring eggs and dairy to room temperature, simply allow them sit out on the counter for an hour or so. Or, if you're like me and hardly ever remember to do this, here’s how to bring eggs and dairy to room temperature quickly.

#4. After adding the flour, do not over mix the batter

Even though cake flour has less protein than all-purpose flour, it's still important to mix the batter gently after adding the flour. Beating the batter after the flour has been added will encourage gluten development. Gluten development is great for things like homemade bread but something we want to avoid in a soft, tender cake.

Add the flour and buttermilk to the cake batter slowly, mixing on low speed just long enough to incorporate the ingredients.

#5. For cakes that are soft and tender, use buttermilk.

Buttermilk is an ingredient in SO MANY of my favorite things - soft and fluffy everyday pancakes, 1-Hour Buttermilk Caramel Cupcakes, Red Velvet Cake, my absolute favorite Vanilla Cake.

The acid in buttermilk creates a tender crumb while adding flavor and providing balance to the sweet side of cakes. Buttermilk also reacts with the baking powder in this recipe to help the cake rise while it bakes, ensuring that the cake will have a light texture that's rich and buttery without being dense and heavy.

If you don't have any buttermilk there are many ways to make a great buttermilk substitute!

What is the Point of a Bundt Cake?

I saw this question in a baking forum and realized it is 100% legit. Why make a Bundt Cake? What's even the point?

3 Things I love about Bundt Cakes:

1. Bundt Cakes are pretty even without any decoration. Bundt Cake pans are molded to create cakes with lovely, sometimes intricate, designs. Once baked, you simply turn them out of the pan to display the lovely domed top and molded design of the bundt pan.
2. Bundt Cakes are super easy to transport, slice and serve. Bringing dessert to a potluck, casual dinner, bake sale, party, camping trip or backyard BBQ? Bundt cakes are your best friend. They are super easy to transport, slice and serve, and sometimes (this cake included!) can be eaten on a napkin with your fingers just as easily as with a plate and fork. It is, by the way, one of my favorite things to serve at a cookout, preferably when the main course is pork loin back ribs or shredded pork tacos.
3. Bundt Cakes bake more evenly. Bundt pans are shaped as a tube with a hole in the center. This shape, with the hole in the center of the pan, helps deep cakes bake more evenly than a round cake pan of the same size.

How to Make Easy Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge Icing

The Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge Icing for this cake requires just three ingredients and couldn't be simpler:

1. Chocolate chips
2. Peanut butter
3. Salt

Simply add all three ingredients to a saucepan and cook over low heat until melted. Then drizzle all that chocolate peanut butter deliciousness over the top of the cake. 

When warm, the icing is glossy, pourable, and super easy to pour over the top of the cake. As it cools, it acquires a fudge texture. I don't know which I like more... eating a slice of this cake when the icing is still all warm and gooey, or eating a slice when the icing is thick and fudgy.

Actually - I do know the answer to that question: Both. 

FAQs and Expert Tips:

More Chocolate Chip Recipes:

• Perfectly Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Brookies ~ Chocolate Chip Cookie Brownie Bars
• Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Ginger Cookies
• Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Skillet Cookie
• Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread
• Anything Cookies
• Chocolate Brownie Loaf Cake
• Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Cookies

If you give this recipe a try, let me know! Scroll down to rate the recipe, leave a comment, or take a picture and tag it #ofbatteranddough on Instagram.