Not your ordinary cake recipe, this German Chocolate Bundt Cake is extra chocolatey, and loaded with coconut-pecan frosting! Better still, it’s ultra easy. Made from doctored-up cake mix, this easy German Chocolate Bundt Cake recipe is one you’ll turn to often!
I seriously have no idea why I was inspired to make this German Chocolate Bundt Cake. I made this in early October, so I honestly can’t remember what prompted me to make it. I think I was just in the mood for something. I love these German Chocolate Brownies so much, and German Chocolate anything – come to think of it – so I must’ve just had a craving.
I usually take notes as I’m making recipes, but I can’t find any notes about this one! I always take notes for this very reason… when I sit down to write, I can’t remember all the little things I wanted to tell you while I was making and photographing it.
In the case of this German Chocolate Bundt Cake, it wasn’t just a few weeks. Five month went by. FIVE MONTHS. These things happen. I overbake and overplan for the blog, and it’s hard to keep up with the writing.
Today is one of those days. I’m struggling! And it’s not helpful that my S.O. is blaring “Cheers” reruns in the background. It’s fun to watch that show again, but it’s a total distraction.
Okay, this Easy German Chocolate Bundt Cake recipe. My Grandma’s Pistachio Bread is really more like cake, and it’s super moist and wonderful. It starts with cake mix, and it gets doctored up pretty good. I used her recipe to make this German Chocolate Bundt Cake. However, there are a few notable changes that make a tremendous difference.
The pistachio bread recipe uses pudding mix to doctor up the cake mix. I used coconut cream pudding mix. Yes!!! Extra coconutty flavor to this cake right at the outset. I also added milk chocolate chips to the cake batter (why not?), pecans, and shredded coconut. You could almost stop there, but you shouldn’t.
For the coconut-pecan frosting, I used the same recipe as these in the German Chocolate Brownies. That frosting is gooey, sticky, caramel-y, sweet, and just all-around awesome. The pecans give it a little soft crunch.
And because it’s more fun if this German Chocolate Bundt Cake is over-the-top, but still ultra-easy, I made a quick batch of milk chocolate ganache in the microwave, and spooned it over the top. I can always count on chocolate ganache to crank things up a notch.
I have a bunch more simple and amazingly delicious cake mix bundt cake recipes. One of the most popular is the Lemon Blueberry Bundt Cake with Lemon Glaze. That thing is ultra-popular and gets wonderful reviews. It is so moist, and the lemon flavor is so vibrant!
Incidentally, I have a Lemon Bundt Cake too, and just Blueberry Bundt Cake too….
Other fave cake mix bundt cakes that include chocolate would be this Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Bundt Cake and this Oreo Bundt Cake.
Easy German Chocolate Bundt Cake Recipe
Ingredients
For cake:
- 1 box German chocolate cake mix
- 1 box instant coconut cream pudding mix
- 4 eggs
- 1 c. sour cream reduced-fat is fine
- 1/4 c. vegetable oil
- 1 c. milk chocolate chips
- 1/3 c. shredded coconut
- 1/3 c. chopped pecans
For coconut-pecan frosting:
- 1 c. sugar
- 1 c. evaporated milk
- 1/2 c. butter
- 3 eggs
- 1 1/3 c. coconut
- 1 c. chopped pecans
- 1 tsp. vanilla
For topping:
- 1 c. milk chocolate chips
- 1/4 c. heavy cream
- 2 tbsp. butter
- 1/2 c. toasted coconut
Instructions
For cake:
- In a large bowl, stir together cake mix, instant pudding mix, eggs, sour cream, oil, chocolate chips, pecans, and coconut. Batter will be thick!
- Spray a large tube pan or bundt pan with non-stick spray.
- Spread batter evenly into prepared pan.
- Bake at 350 degrees for 40-45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean.
- Remove pan to a wire rack to cool for 10 minutes, then invert the cake onto the wire rack to cool completely.
For coconut-pecan frosting:
- In a large saucepan over medium heat, combine sugar, evaporated milk, butter, and eggs.
- Stirring constantly, bring the mixture to a boil. Do not walk away from it - it will heat and cook quickly, and you don't want to scramble the eggs!
- Once it comes to a boil and thickens, remove from heat, and stir in the coconut, pecans, and vanilla.
- Cool to room temperature.
- Spread on top of the cooled bundt cake.
For topping:
- In a small microwave-safe bowl, combine chocolate chips, heavy cream, and butter.
- Microwave on high at 30-second intervals until chocolate is melted and the mixture is smooth.
- Drizzle over bundt cake.
- Sprinkle the toasted coconut over the ganache.
- Allow 10-15 minutes for topping to set. Cut and serve.
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I am not able to find “Instant” coconut pudding mix here…can I substitute regular cook coconut pudding(dry mix) instead?
Hi Tami! You can just use a regular pudding mix! Vanilla or chocolate would work. Doesn’t have to be coconut cream pudding mix! But I did find it, and had it, so it was definitely a fun addition. It will turn out great with a different flavor. 🙂
I couldn’t find the coconut pudding either so I did vanilla pudding and a teaspoon of coconut extract. I made this for a large gathering and everyone raved about how good it was.
Delicious chocolate bundt cake for the weekend party and birthday. I m fond of baking and every week I try new cakes. This week I will be trying this one. Hope everyone will love it and thanks for sharing it.
The cake mix I bought has pudding mix in it. Do I need to add pudding mix.
Hi Vicki: I don’t usually use cake mix that has pudding mix in it, but yes, I would treat it like a regular cake mix, and I’d follow the recipe as written! Please let me know if you need anything else, and I hope you like the cake! 🙂
Thanks
Was I supposed to make the pudding according to the package first and then add it to the cake mix?
Hi Susan: No! You just add the pudding mix to the cake mix and the other ingredients – just the pudding mix! 🙂
Any suggestions on The frosting? Mine is coming out too runny.
Hi Selene! I’m sorry to hear that. It should thicken as it cooks, and thicken as it cools. The eggs help bring it together – I would just make sure that you’re cooking it long enough that the eggs have a chance to thicken it! Good luck!
This happened to me the first two times that I followed the recipe. I’m about to make two more cakes using this recipe, so I clicked on the German Chocolate Brownies to see what I was doing wrong with the eggs. On the Brownie recipe, it specifies egg yolks. The cake recipe states eggs. That’s why it comes out runny.
What size of pudding mix?
Great question! Thank you for pointing that out! In all my pudding mix bundt cakes, I usually use a 3.4 oz. box, but I think the Oreo Cookies ‘n Cream only comes in a larger 4.2 oz. box (I think because it has cookie crumbs in it that probably add to its weight). If you use the Oreo pudding mix, it’ll be a 4.2 oz. box. If you use just chocolate (someone in another country couldn’t find Oreo), then it’ll be 3.4 oz. box. Make sense? Thank you! 🙂
Hello Sarah,
Can this receipe be used to make cupcakes versus cake? If so, how long do I have to bake them? In addition, are there any other changes that I need to make to the receipe?
Hi Michelle: For cupcakes, the frosting will work great, definitely. For cupcakes though, I think I would use a different cake recipe – I would use one made specifically for chocolate cupcakes or a chocolate layer cake. Bundt cakes are denser, and I don’t know if it would work as well. Try these from Life, Love & Sugar! for the cupcake itself: https://www.lifeloveandsugar.com/2017/05/31/moist-homemade-chocolate-cupcakes/
How do I pin your recipes? I want to save a bunch but don’t see a pin button?
Hi!! You should be able to hover over any image at all, and the Pin button should appear. Any image should display it when you hover. Please let me know if that works! All my recipes are here though: https://www.pinterest.com/theGLG/the-gold-lining-girl-blog-recipes/
I hope that helps! 🙂
How can I tell if the frosting has finished cooking? I don’t want to serve raw eggs ?
As long as it thickens, and as long as you cook it for a few minutes, you’ll be fine!! Just make sure it’s thickened and that you stir it around for a few minutes. 🙂
This cake is delicious. Wife said it would win a baking contest.
LOL! That’s fantastic! I’m so happy you guys liked it. Thanks so much for the feedback!
Love this recipe!! I made them in mini bundt pan and just cooked the same minutes as a cupcake and they came out perfect. I skipped the chocolate ganache and still amazing . If I make them the day before should I refrigerate? I was also thinking of putting the coconut topping in the fridge and then warm up and decorate in the morning. What are your thoughts?
Omg, I love that idea! I actually have a few mini bundt pans – I’m going to try that too. The cakes probably don’t need to be refrigerated the day before, but I’d refrigerate the frosting, and then do what you said – lightly warm it up and decorate the day of! I’m so glad you like this recipe. Thank you for sharing! 🙂
I made this cake for a December Pot Luck dinner. The cake was very easy to make, and tasted good. The frosting took forever to cook and didn’t taste all that great. While it turned out to be a real pretty cake, in future I’ll just make an easy no-cook frosting and sprinkle some toasted coconut over it.
Thanks so much for your feedback! So sorry to hear that you weren’t a fan of the frosting – I love it, and it’s classic German Chocolate frosting, but it won’t be for everyone, I suppose! Thanks again for your comment, and I’m glad you enjoyed the cake overall. 🙂
I can’t wait to bake this cake. Just one thing, I haven’t been able to find the instant coconut cream pudding. What should I do?
Thank you so much 😊
You can definitely use another pudding as a substitute if you can’t find it. It’s just bonus coconut flavor, but you can use vanilla or milk chocolate pudding instead! Please let me know how you like it!
For the frosting, should I use the whole egg or just the yolks? Hoping to make this for my son’s birthday!
This particular recipe uses the whole eggs! Though I have seen other recipes that use yolks only. I’ve used whole eggs when I’ve used this frosting for other recipes — brownies, etc.
Amazing recipe! I did encounter one problem. Although I had my heat low-medium and never walked away from the frosting for a second, the eggs scrambled. I looked at another recipe for a better method that included tempering the eggs first. Worked perfectly! So, for those of you who may not want to make the frosting twice, you might want to temper those eggs before adding them to the sugar, milk and butter mixture.
Great tip — thank you for sharing that. Maybe I’ll add a note in the recipe about tempering! Thanks so much. 🙂
How do you temper the eggs in the frosting?
They don’t get added later to a heated mixture, they start out cool and stirred with several ingredients. So there’s no need to temper them, but rather, they end up cooking low and slow with other ingredients, and you stir constantly so that you do not scramble them.
Can this recipe or any off your Bundt cake recipes bee made inn three mini Bundt pans? If so, how long are they baked for?
I apologize for the delayed response. I have not made these in mini bundts actually, but I would probably bake 20-25 minutes, rotate, and see if an additional 5 minutes or so is needed.
Can you make this cake without a boxed mix and boxed pudding? There are so many added chemicals in those ingredients.
Sure! If you have a chocolate bundt cake recipe that you like, feel free to swap, and just use the frosting recipe here.
I love this cake recipe. Every German chocolate icing recipe I have ever used calls only for egg yolks…not the entire egg. I mistakenly forgot this and made the icing one time with the entire egg and I had to throw it out. Maybe that’s just what I am use to.
I can’t wait to make this for my husband. Can I assume the cake mix you used was a 15.25 oz box mix? Some recipes call for 18.25 oz but I can’t find that size to buy. Thank you.
Yes! That’s correct — 15.25 oz box. Thank you for checking. I hope you all enjoy it, Glenna! 🙂
Cake turned out amazing! I’ve tried to find coconut pudding for other recipes, can’t find it so I used chocolate pudding mix and added McCormick pure coconut extract to cake batter.
Love this recipe. Should it be stored in the refrigerator or is it ok on the counter under a cover?
I like to store it in the fridge!
Can semi sweet chips be used instead of milk chocolate?
Sure!
I adore your writing style! The cake recipe as written was too thick (it almost broke my blender). I then compared this recipe to other chocolate bundt cake recipes either called for 2 cups of sour cream or 1 cup of sour cream plus 1 cup of oil or 1 cup of warm water.