Who doesn’t love both cheesecake and regular cake? Then why not enjoy both at the same time? This decadent Cheesecake Tunnel Cake is a rich, moist chocolate cake with a cheesecake layer baked right into it and topped with a chocolate glaze.
Cheesecake Tunnel of Fudge Cake
This recipe combines the simpleness of a box cake mix with quick prep of the cheesecake filling and chocolate drizzle to create a dessert that tastes complex and decadent. It is sure to impress your friends, family, and guests when you serve up a slice of the cheesecake tunnel cake at your next gathering.
Ingredients:
- Chocolate Fudge cake mix: I love that this recipe starts with a cake mix because it makes it so fast to make, don’t follow the cake mix instructions though, we are adding other things!
- Sour cream: This is added to the cake mix to make the cake extra thick and moist to hold the tunnel of cheesecake
- Vegetable oil: part of the cake
- Eggs: you’ll add more eggs than the box mix calls for which helps improve the texture and stability of the cake
- Cream cheese: this is the base of that middle cheesecake layer
- Egg: also in the cheesecake layer, helps the texture to be more like cheesecake and less like cream cheese
- Sugar: to sweeten the cheese cake middle
- Semisweet chocolate chips: you’ll use these in the cheesecake center and for the glaze on top of the cake
How to make a bundt cake with something in the middle:
- Mix up your better-than-box mix, box mix (add the extras like sour cream called for in the recipe).
- Mix up your cheesecake layer.
- Put part of the chocolate cake in the prepared bundt cake pan.
- Put the cheesecake layer in the center on top of the chocolate layer.
- Top with the rest of the chocolate cake batter.
- Bake and then cool.
- Remove from the pan, drizzle with the fudgy frosting and serve.
- Enjoy everyone’s delight when they discover a cheesecake layer hiding in their beautiful chocolate cake.
How do I grease a bundt pan?
You can use a pastry brush or paper towel to scoop up your fat (butter, margarine, shortening, oil). Apply an even coating around all of the sides of a bundt pan. Be thorough to avoid the cake sticking.
Then you can sprinkle about ¼ cup of flour on the bottom of the pan and turn the pan in circles to coat the fat in flour. You can tap the sides of the pan to help the flour move around. You can also cover the bundt pan with plastic wrap and shake the flour around.
Baking spray also works really well (it has flour in it!).
Frequently Asked Questions:
If you have an angel food cake pan, you can use that as well!
If you don’t have that, you can use a circular cake pan and grease a ramekin to put in the middle before pouring your batter. The hard part about this is gauging if you have a large enough pan for all of your batter and baking times will vary a bit.
When baking a cake in a bundt pan or angel food cake pan, it is best to cool down the cake with the pan inverted. This allows for gravity to help your cake stay tall and fluffy after cooling, rather than being weighed down and a bit more dense.
More recipes you’ll love:
- Black Magic Cake
- Easy 5-Ingredient German Chocolate Cake
- Hershey’s Perfectly Chocolate Chocolate Cake and Perfectly Chocolate Chocolate Frosting
- Peanut Butter Cheesecake Chocolate Cake
If you’ve tried this chocolate cheesecake bundt cake recipe or any other recipe on Barbara Bakes, then don’t forget to rate the recipe and leave me a comment below! I would love to hear about your experience making it. And if you snapped some pictures of it, share it with me on Instagram so I can repost on my stories.
Cheesecake Tunnel Cake
Ingredients
For the Cake:
- 1 Chocolate Fudge cake mix with pudding in the mix around 15 ounce package
- 1 cup sour cream
- ½ cup water
- ½ cup vegetable oil
- 4 large eggs
- FILLING
For the Cheesecake Filling:
- 8 oz. cream cheese softened
- 1 egg
- â…“ cup sugar
- 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
For the glaze:
- ½ cup semisweet chocolate chips
- â…“ cup heavy whipping cream
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- For the cake: Place the cake mix, sour cream, water, oil and eggs in a large mixing bowl. Blend with an electric mixer on low speed for 1 minute. Stop the machine and scrape down the sides of the bowl. Beat 2 to 3 minutes more until combined.
- Pour â…” of the batter in a greased and floured 12 cup bundt pan.
- Mix together filling ingredients. Spread filling over the batter and top with remaining batter
- Bake for 45-55 minutes until the cake springs back when lightly pressed and is starting to pull away from the sides of the pan.
- Cool on wire rack for 20 min, invert it onto a rack and cool 20 minutes more.
- For the glaze, combine the chocolate chips and heavy whipping cream in a small saucepan over low heat. Stir until the chocolate has melted and the mixture has thickened slightly, 1 to 2 minutes.
- Place the cake on a serving platter and drizzle the warm glaze over it. (I usually just melt the chips with the cream in the microwave, put the glaze in a Ziploc, cut the corner and drizzle it over the cake.)
- Store cake covered in the refrigerator.
Nutrition
You’ll love this show stopping chocolate bundt cake with a cheesecake middle. It’s super easy to make and even more fun to eat.
Sharlana
Do you think a gluten free chocolate cake mix would work with this?  Would I need to add an instant pudding mix since I don’t think they make them with pudding added?  And would the amounts of sour cream, eggs, water and oil be the same?
I would really like to try this…looks absolutely delicious!   Thanks.Â
Melissa Griffiths
I don’t know as I haven’t tried it but I’ve had really good luck using gluten free cake mixes in recipes in the past. I don’t know what you would need for all the sour cream and such though. So not very helpful but I think it’s possible.
mrsblocko
I made this cake for National Bundt day and wrote about it
here. This is by far the best bundt I’ve ever made. Thank you for posting the recipe!
James
Wow.. this is looking amazing. Chocolate cake is my favourite. Let me try to follow your recipe chocolate with cheese.
Bamboo
chocolate plus cheese = a delicious cake!
Anita
YUM! What a fantastic looking cake!
Deborah
I’ve never seen a tunnel cake with cheesecake in it – this looks amazing!
Jude
Sinful and decadent. Tunnel cake is a hardcore indulgence for me because of its richness 🙂
Carrian
This looks delicious!!!
Jerri - Simply Sweet Home
Now THAT looks yummy!
Marcela S.
Absolutely delicious! Congraculations. Yummy.
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Cathleen
Gabe's Girl
Yowser, this is one of the best recipes I have seen in a while!
Anj
I’m always looking for new cakes to try. This one is definitely going on my list. Chocolate and cheesecake what a great combination. You have a great blog!
Judy
Oh, my, Barbara, your cake looks delicoso! Who doesn’t love chocolate and cheesecake?