TWD: Baking with Julia - Creme Bruleed Chocolate Bundt

Our recipe for Tuesday's with Dorie this week is Creme Bruleed Chocolate Bundt cake.  Since it was chosen at a time that corresponds with Valentine's Day, I think many of us probably served it then.  I did, anyway!  We had some neighbor friends over for dinner, which is a good plan as this cake serves a lot and I certainly don't need to eat the entire thing!!

So let's think about this - it is a chocolate bundt cake that is filled with liqueur soaked raspberries and then topped with a light creme brulee custard and then caramelized.  Um, okay, sign me up!  Let's go over the individual elements:

The cake itself is a recipe I would make again even just on its own.  It is delicious.  Super moist and chocolatey.  And guess what, it involved lots of folding and I did a good job!  Maybe I am getting better at this folding business...  Hoping that is true, anyway!  So, chocolate bundt?  Yum.

The next element is the berries...  This is simply raspberries that are tossed with liqueur.  I used a raspberry brandy that we happened to have.  I think I would use less liqueur next time, as it was a bit strong for me.  Plus it ran out under the cake and then mixed a bit strangely with the custard that came next.  So, liqueur soaked raspberries?  Okay but needs a slight revision.

Finally, we get the creme brulee.  To be honest, I am not sure what makes this a creme brulee and not a creme anglaise.  Is there a difference, really?  This is a creme brulee that you can pour, which is unlike any creme brulee that I have ever had.  Which is not to say that this was bad in any way, but I had a different idea in my head as to what it was going to be like.  Unless maybe I screwed up somewhere and it really was supposed to be thicker?  But then you couldn't pour it over the top of the cake, so surely not.  Anyway, the "creme brulee" was delicious (as it always is, thick or thin!)

Overall?  Yum.  The adults all really liked the cake.  The kids did not, but I think that was because of the brandy in the raspberries.  This was not a difficult dessert to make,  it just took a little planning ahead to allow the creme brulee to refrigerate for a while.  It certainly has great visual appeal and looks like you did something tremendous, especially when you pull out a brulee torch! 
 

You can find the recipe on pages 280-281 of Baking with Julia, or you can find it here.  To see what some of the other bakers thought of this dessert, head to the Baking with Dorie blog and check out the LYL posts (leave your link).