Chocolate Chip Swirl Cake

At the beginning of September, I received an email from Betty Crocker with a link to a "celebration cake" booklet that is really an online or downloadable 15 recipe collection.  September has two birthdays and an anniversary in my household so I thought I'd check them out. Several of the recipes are chocolate so I asked my husband, the one with the first birthday, if he wanted me to try any of these recipes.  Surprisingly he said not only "yes" but he also picked a recipe I didn't expect: "Chocolate Chip Swirl Cake."  I thought for sure he'd pick the Chocolate Peppermint Stab Cake since about half the time he wants me to make a lemon stab cake and he loves peppermint and chocolate together.

Here is the recipe, copyrighted to General Mills, of course.

Ingredients:
Mini semisweet chocolate chips
box Betty Crocker Super Moist White cake mix
1.25 cups of water
1/3 cup vegetable oil (in my case I used Omega 3 oil)
3 egg whites (3/4 cup egg white substitute)
Chocolate Syrup
1 container Betty Crocker white frosting

My husband's birthday was on Sunday so on Sunday morning, early so I couldn't heat the house up uncomfortably, I baked the cake.

I used the 13X9-inch pan as recommended and then tossed together 1/2 cup mini chips with 1T of the dry mix. I set that small bowl aside and then mixed the rest of the dry mix as directed by the box.  Once that was all mixed I added in the chips dusted with the remaining dry mix.

I scooped out 1 cup of the mixture into the same small bowl because why make even more dishes to wash?  To this I added 1/4 cup of the syrup and mixed it well. Frankly I didn't think this was enough syrup but since this was my first time following this recipe I didn't want to add more since that would be adding in more moisture as well.  I just like a more chocolaty anything as you all know, Sisters and Brothers.

Then I poured the rest of the mixture into the pan and smoothed it out a touch.  I dropped the chocolaty mixture onto the top in eight sections, adding extra until I'd used it all.  Note: you lose mixture with each of these steps no matter how well you scrape the bowls, it is just a simple fact.  Then I made a swirling pattern with a knife through the entire cake, turning it one-quarter turn and repeating as directed.

In my oven it only took 34 minutes on the lowest shelf for the cake to bake thoroughly and well without any slight burning at all.  I was very pleased by that since my oven can at times be temperamental.  I often think this is gas oven thing but then I grew up with electric so I've never fully adjusted in some ways or I just have less than objective memories.

Here's the cake post baking.  I think I did a good job with the swirling pattern, what do you all think?

Then after letting it cool for a good three hours I mixed together the rest of the chips with the frosting.  Now this is more chips than the recipe called for but really what would I do with the leftovers?  Why not add them to the frosting, right?  I'm not a particularly good froster, I'm just not but there is only so much you can do with such a thick resulting frosting.  I even added 2T vanilla extract to the frosting to add more flavor and make it a touch thinner to work with.

I waited to add the syrup until right before I expected guests to arrive for the party.  I didn't want the syrup to soak through and I hoped it would look nicer this way.  I tried to mimic what I did with the knife swirling the cake batter but I'm not sure it turned out exactly the same.



For as good or poor as it looks, the true test was what the guests and the birthday boy thought of the cake.  Several people asked if it was homemade... semi-homemade I think is the correct term.  It was very moist and fluffy, the chips and the top syrup added a lot of chocolate.  Overall most people who had it seemed to like it.  We have some left over so the birthday boy can enjoy it a few more days.