Chocolate orange bundt cake experiment or Wow, I think my pictures are getting better

It has been a few weeks since I've baked anything sweet and I felt like I was neglecting my husband's caloric needs. I really didn't want cookies today so I went for a cake. Chocolate cake. Chocolate bundt cake, I thought. It should be very easy to find a chocolate bundt cake recipe online. Wrong! I found one bundt cake recipe that didn't call for a "box mix" (soo not a real ingredient!!!) and it was a tropical fruit cake. So, I took it upon myself to make a recipe for a chocolate bundt cake.
Start with 3/4 cup of softened butter. What? You've never had to microwave your butter to soften it before? Well, aren't you just Jonny-on-the-ball?

To that add 1 1/2 cups of sugar.

Combining butter and sugar is called creaming. Combine or cream the butter and sugar.

Referencing the tropical recipe, it called for buttermilk. Yeah right. I may actually have buttermilk in my house if I actually had a cow or goat to make butter with. I do not. P Dubs over at The Pioneer Woman taught me how to make a buttermilk substitute using milk and vinear. I had to do math to convert her measurements. My head hurt. Add 1/4 cup whole milk and 3/4 teaspoons of white vinegar stirred together. (Just a tip, in general, white vinegar is NOT okay to use in cooking. It's disgusting, nasty stuff. I keep this industralized jug around for cleaning purposes.)

Add 1/2 cup cocoa powder (not the drinking kind) and 1 3/4 cups AP flour. Did you know that cocoa powder acts like flour in baking? Whenever I want to make a recipe chocolaty, I substitute 1/4 to 1/2 cups of the flour for cocoa powder.

Let's all take a moment to admire the timing of the next photo. No, it is not what we would call a clear photo, but I CRACKED THE EGG WITH ONE HAND AND TOOK THE PICTURE WITH THE OTHER! Using my iPad no less, not even a regular sized camera. Add 3 eggs.

Checking the island fruit recipe to see if my ratios were doing okay, I noticed that she included bananas. I had bananas, but I really didn't want to use them in the cake. I figured an orange would add about the same moisture and sweetness as the bananas. That's how this became chocolate orange bundt cake. Add the zest and juice of one orange.

I don't cook with citrus enough to own a microplane or a juicer so I juice the orange with a fork. This meant that some of the pulp got into the cake batter. Trust me, this was a good thing!

2 teaspoons of vanilla.

1 and 1/4 teaspoons of baking soda.

I attempted to stir this by hand, but I failed. Get out the mixer. You don't want to over stir and end up with a tough cake.

Spray the heck out of the bundt pan with nonstick cooking spray. (I think this is technically an angel food cake pan. I'm not really sure it makes a difference.) This is not an angel food cake that needs the edges of the pan to climb. This has 1 and 1/4 teaspoons of baking soda and will rise on it's own. But the less spray you use, the harder it will be to release from the pan.

As a side note, I licked the bowl, I liked the spoon, and I licked the beaters. The cake batter was delicious!

Referencing the island fruit cake again (which can be found here Tropical Island Bundt Cake) it said to bake at 325 for 60 to 75 minutes. I did bake at 325, but when I checked at 55 minutes it was perfectly done. So check it early. You can check it by poking the cake in the middle with a long toothpick. If the stick comes out clean it is done.

Let the cake cool in the pan for at least 10 minutes, then invert onto your cake plate and let cool completely before glazing. I prefer a vanilla glaze. This is pretty much the same thing I use on cinnamon rolls.
*1 lb of powdered sugar. This is half of a 2 lb bag. Because 2 divided by 2 is 1. ;) I never actually measure this, just eyeball it. *2 teaspoons of vanilla extract*approx 2 tablespoons of milk. Do not add it all at once. You just want to mix in the milk until the glaze is the consistency you want. You may need more or less milk. Just add the milk continuously stiring until it's right.

Once your cake is completely cooled, drizzle the glaze over the cake.

Slice and serve. Smile.