If you like the combination of chocolate and coffee, these chocolate Kahlua cakes will blow your recipe file. Easy to make (one bowl) and incredibly moist, they can also be made in one big cake, cupcakes, or loaf.
They are deep in flavor, a one-bowl recipe which is always a plus, and they unmold like a dream.
Chocolate and coffee are a magic combination, and these mini bundt cakes are just cute and perfect for this time of year when we want to celebrate the things we love, and I find that chocolate Kahlua cakes fall under that category. An ongoing romance.
Why this recipe works.
- Flavor: the combination of chocolate and coffee is one for the books. Coffee brings out the best qualities of the cocoa powder used in this recipe and deepens the flavor.
- One-bowl: this recipe requires only one bowl for mixing it. So there's little to wash afterward! One bowl recipes are not only convenient but easy to make usually.
- Oil: this recipe uses oil instead of butter. This is good mainly for two reasons, it makes for a moister cake and it's so much easier to mix. There's no bringing butter to room t° or creaming or any of those somewhat extra laborious steps. Oil makes this recipe simpler and the cake lasts longer.
- Unmolding: a huge deal breaker with bundt cakes is the unmolding. Pans with intricate patterns can be tricky and it's beyond frustrating to make a recipe and have it stick to the pan when unmolding it. This recipe unmolds like a dream.
- Keeping: these mini cakes can be frozen up to a month (wrap in plastic separately), and keep for a few days at room t° if well wrapped in plastic.
About the coffee glaze.
This is a simple powdered sugar glaze, where said sugar (or confectioners sugar as it's also called) is mixed with a liquid until creamy.
- Liquid: you can use whatever liquid you want, from lemon juice to milk, to liquors to olive oil.
- Consistency: it varies with the amount of liquid you use, so you can have a runnier or thicker glaze.
We used Kahlua (a coffee liquor) as the liquid part in this recipe. And it is amazing! Regular coffee works really well too, the proof is in our popular Brown Butter Coffee Cake.
Tips & tricks for making this recipe:
- Pan size - I love mini bundts, but you can use a regular large bundt or 2 medium loaf pans. I never tried this recipe as a layer cake and I think it would be a bit too tender to fill. But it would work baked as a sheet cake.
- Preparing the pan - I use baking spray and fine dry breadcrumbs. I know it's not traditional but it works. An alternative to this is using a brush with soft butter, flouring and refrigerating the pan while you make the filling. Or use a baking spray that comes with added flour.
- Liquor - a coffee liquor is what complements best this chocolate cake, but it works well with orange liquor (Cointreau, Grand Marnier), with almond liquor (such as Amaretto). And probably others I never tried. I use Kahlua because it's my favorite one, but there are other coffee liquors you can use.
- Glaze - use the liquor as stated in the recipe, prepared liquid strong coffee, or a tablespoon of each. They all work great.
- Keeping - this is a very moist cake recipe and it keeps very well at room t°, well wrapped in plastic. The flavor is fudgier the next day. You can freeze it for 1 month, first in plastic and then aluminum foil.
And if the glaze and cake have my absolute favorite coffee liquor in it the appeal grows exponentially. So do my thighs.
By the way, these cakes are much fudgier the next day or even the next one. They stay ridiculously moist for many days. Even when left uncovered.
With easy recipes like these, I make them all the time. There's something about a glazed mini bundt that just appeals to me every time.
Other recipes you might like:
Glazed Brown Butter Cake
Bourbon Chocolate Bundt Cake
Lemon Poppy Seed Bundt Cake
Chocolate Coconut Bundt Cake
Walnut Loaf Cake with Coffee Glaze
Vanilla Poppy Seed Bundt Cake
Let me know if you make this recipe! I’d love to hear what you think about it.
Thank you for being here, I appreciate it! Let’s connect via Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest.
Coffee Chocolate Mini Cakes
If you like the combination of chocolate and coffee, these chocolate Kahlua cakes will blow your recipe file! Easy to make (one-bowl!) and incredibly moist, they can also be made in one big cake, cupcakes or loaf.
- Total Time: 55 minutes
- Yield: 12 mini cakes 1x
Ingredients
For the cake:
- 1 ¾ cups (350g) sugar
- 2 cups (280g) all-purpose flour
- ¾ cup (100g) cocoa powder
- 1 ¼ (5g) teaspoon baking powder
- 1 ¼ (6g) teaspoon baking soda
- ¾ (5g) teaspoon salt
- 2 eggs (room tº)
- 1 cup (240g) milk
- ½ cup (120g) of vegetable oil
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- ½ cup drip (or espresso) coffee (very hot)
- ½ cup Kahlua or other coffee liqueur
For the glaze:
- 1 cup (160) powdered sugar
- 1 or 2 tablespoons Kahlua or other coffee liqueur
Instructions
For the cake:
- Preheat oven to 350ºF /180ºC.
- Butter and flour or spray well with cooking spray, 12 mini bundt molds.
- Sift together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. I measure everything and sift it directly over the wet ingredients.
- In a large bowl beat eggs, milk, vanilla, and oil for 1 minute.
- Add dry ingredients to the wet, ½ cup at a time, while beating on low speed. Do this slowly so the batter doesn't develop clumps.
- Heat coffee until almost boiling.
- Mix with liqueur and add slowly to the chocolate batter. The mixture will be thin.
- Fill molds up to ¾ of its full capacity. I put the batter in a glass measuring cup so it's easier to pour.
- Bake until tester inserted in center comes out clean, about 25 minutes for mini bundt and 45 minutes for a big bundt.
- Invert cake onto cooling rack. If cake resists, cool in the pan for 15 minutes before inverting.
For the glaze:
- In a small bowl mix a cup of powdered sugar with 1 Tbs or more of coffee liqueur, depending on how runny you want your glaze to be.
- Pour glaze on top of cakes and let it drip to the sides.
Notes
Pan size - I love mini bundts, but you can use a regular large bundt or 2 medium loaf pans. I never tried this recipe as a layer cake and I think it would be a bit too tender to fill. But it would work baked as a sheet cake.
Preparing the pan - I use baking spray and fine dry breadcrumbs. I know it's not traditional but it works. An alternative to this is using a brush with soft butter, flouring and refrigerating the pan while you make the filling. Or using a baking spray that comes with added flour.
Liquor - a coffee liquor is what complements best this chocolate cake, but it works well with orange liquor (Cointreau, Grand Marnier), with almond liquor (such as Amaretto). And probably others I never tried. I use Kahlua because it's my favorite one, but there are other coffee liquors you can use.
Glaze - use the liquor as stated in the recipe, prepared liquid strong coffee, or a tablespoon of each. They all work great.
Keeping - this is a very moist cake recipe and it keeps very well at room t°, well wrapped in plastic. You can freeze it for 1 month, first in plastic and then aluminum foil.
- Prep Time: 25 minutes
- Cook Time: 30 minutes
- Category: Cakes
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1/12
- Calories: 383
- Sugar: 43.5 g
- Sodium: 301.3 mg
- Fat: 11.5 g
- Carbohydrates: 64.1 g
- Protein: 4.9 g
- Cholesterol: 33 mg
Keywords: coffee bundt cakes, chocolate kahlua cake, kahlua cake
- slightly adapted from Kiss My Bundt, by Christa Wilson
erica says
I can't wait to try this! I just purchased silicone mini bundt cake pan.. do I still need to spray and flour it? Thanks
Paula Montenegro says
Hi Erica! There's no need to flour silicone pans, and, though I hardly use them, I might've lightly sprayed them the few times I baked with them. The manufacturer might have some info online about it. Happy baking!
Barb says
Coffee and chocolate, you can't go wrong with that combination.
What was the capacity of the individual molds, around 1/2 cup?
I don't have a pan with 12 mini molds, but I do have other pans. Just wondering if this batter would make 6, 1 cup mini bundts.
Thanks
Paula Montenegro says
Hi Barb! It should make six 1-cup mini bundts, since I use the bundtlette mini pans from Nordic Ware and the capacity of each one is 3/4 cup filled to the brim (the six of them amount to 4,5 cups). So I'm using between 1/2 to 2/3 cup batter for each individual cake because you never fill them completely.