Lower-Fat Deep Chocolate Bundt Cake

What a weighty title for what is simply a lovely classic chocolate cake. Veganomicon strikes again. I splurged on a pretty bundt pan last week but suffered an oven mishap in its inital outing, so I tried again with this recipe. Success - look how pretty! I even followed the recipe (I'm worried... this is becoming a habit with this cookbook!) except that I couldn't resist buying hazelnut extract instead of almond. And I don't own any plain sugar, so I used sucanat and maple syrup. I topped it with a strawberry coulis and slices of monstrous farmers market strawberries. And some very non-vegan cream whipped with maple syrup and more of that hazelnut extract. Guests devoured it, and we all agreed we never would have guessed that it was vegan, low-fat, or had that much coffee in it. I have some carob to use up, and other bloggers have said it's quite nice with that instead of cocoa, so that's up next time. The coconut lemon bundt cake adjoining this recipe in the book also sounds heavenly. Anyone have a favorite bundt recipe?

Lower-Fat Deep Chocolate Bundt Cake

1 3/4 cups fresh brewed coffee
2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups sugar (or 1 cup sucanat and 1/2 cup maple syrup)
1/3 cup safflower oil
1/3 cup applesauce
1/4 cup cornstarch
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract (or hazelnut)
2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 325. Lightly grease bundt pan. Bring coffee to simmer over medium heat. Turn down heat and whisk in cocoa until it has dissolved. Remove from heat, set aside to cool.

In a mixing bowl, whisk together the sugar, oil, applesauce, and cornstarch until sugar and cornstarch is dissolved, about 2 minutes. Mix in the extracts and the cooled coffee/chocolate.

Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and add to liquid. Beat until smooth. Pour batter into pan and bake for about 45 minutes, or until a knife inserted comes out clean. Let cool about 20 minutes and invert onto serving plate to cool completely.

Serve plain, sift confectioners' sugar over the top, top with fresh fruit, fruit coulis, chocolate ganache, etc. Google for all kinds of bloggers take on this recipe. (Personally I could go for all of the above...)