Chocolate Pound Cake with Rich Chocolate Glaze:

[mapol]

This is a favorite recipe of mine, which I make quite often for parties and other special occasions.

Chocolate Pound Cake:

2 Cups White Flour (I use unbleached White King Arthur Flour.)
2 Cups of granulated sugar (white)
6 ounces of unsweetened baking chocolate
2 sticks of unsalted butter
3 large eggs
1 tsp of baking powder
3/4 tsp of baking soda
1/4 tsp of salt
1 tsp of vanilla extract
2 Tbsp of instant coffee
2 Tbsp of hot water
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Thoroughly grease and flour a ten-inch tube pan. (Don't use non-stick cookware if you have birds or any other pets in the household.)

Cream the butter and sugar together until the mixture is light-colored and fluffy.

Fold in the eggs, one at a time. Add the vanilla extract.

After melting the chocolate, stir it into the eggs/vanilla extract mixture. Mix it for 3 minutes on a cake mixes setting.

In a separate bowl, combine the flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder.

Pour the 2 Tbsp. of hot water into a cup. Dissolve the 2 Tbsp. of instant coffee in the hot water. With cool water, fill the cup until you have 1.5 cups of the water/coffee solution.

Fold in the water/coffee solution and the dry ingredients separately and intermittently from each other. It's best to hand stir the water, so that it won't splatter, if one gets the drift. Mix and blend both the dry and the wet ingredients and combine them to make the cake batter. Pour the batter into the bunt cake pan. Bake the cake for an hour, or until the cake springs back when you've pressed it a bit with one finger. Cool the cake down for at least 20 minutes. Invert it onto a plate. Let it cool for another 20 minutes or so. Then make the rich chocolate glaze.

Rich Chocolate Glaze:

1 1/3 cups of semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

3 Tbsp of confectioners sugar

2/3 cup of Heavy whipping cream.

Put the chocolate chips into a medium small sauce pan. Add the heavy whipping cream, the confectioners sugar, and the vanilla extract. Put it on relatively low heat, so that it can dissolve. Keep stirring the chocolate glaze until it's smooth and creamy. When it is ready, and the pound cake has cooled down sufficiently enough, drizzle the glaze onto the cake, until it's all gone. Transfer the cake into a cake holder, and get it ready for whatever occasion you've cooked it for.

Good luck and all the best.