Chocolate Cream Cheese Pound Cake

Vegetable oil spray for misting the pan
Flour for dusting the pan
1 package (18.25 ounces) plain butter recipe fudge cake mix
1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese, at room temperature
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup sugar
4 large eggs
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1. Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Lightly mist a 10-inch tube pan with vegetable oil spray, then dust with flour. Shake out the excess flour. Set the pan aside.

2. Place the cake mix, cream cheese, water, oil, sugar, eggs, and vanilla 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 with a rubber spatula. Increase the mixer speed to medium and beat 2 minutes more, scraping the sides down again if needed. The batter should look well combined. Pour the batter into the prepared pan, smoothing it out with the rubber spatula. Place the pan in the oven.

3. Bake the cake until it springs back when lightly pressed with your finger and just starts to pull away from the sides of the pan, 58 to 62 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and place it on a wire rack to cool for 20 minutes. Run a long, sharp knife around the edge of the cake and invert it onto one rack, then invert it onto a second rack so that the cake cools large side up for 20 minutes more.
4. Slide the cake onto a serving platter. Slice and serve.

click here for a printer frendly version of this page.