The Milk Nazi and Tunnel of Fudge Recipe

Yesterday for Kaitlyn's birthday we had a lot of chocolate. I made chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast. Of course, somebody in the house had downed the last bit of milk the night before. That put a damper on the pancakes and later the chocolate cake. (This is one of those expectation things I was talking about in the last post that I should have somehow anticipated the ravenous milk consumption, knowing we were going to have these pancakes and a chocolate cake later and purchased extra milk. I failed.) In our small town, there are two convenience stores and a Dollar General that only sell the hormone laden, antibiotic riddled milk - and I.won't.buy.it. Not only won't I buy it but if I do - after learning what is going on with it, nobody here will drink it. In order to save the day, I would have had to drive to the next nearest town - but my tank was on empty. So a $10-12 in the gas tank plus $5-6 in fluctuating costs for the "mid-grade" milk we buy (no hormones/antibiotics but not organic) = almost $20 for a gallon of milk. We had to do without it, even on a birthday. But this means that I am going to be patrolling the kitchen watching for those who drink vast quantities of milk, and having to ask them to please consider others. I nary get a glass of milk or a bowl of cereal in a week's time. I have never desired to police food, but this is what it has come to folks. We have been doing all sorts of things to try and conserve - I rode home this morning in the searing Texas inferno of 10 am without the AC on in the car! We have also asked the girls to wait up to an hour to come home from work because Travis drives right through that area on his way home from work about 4 pm - and they were calling me between 2:30 and 3:30 to pick them up. (I feel like a horrible parent for this - but it saves us a LOT of money in the course of a week because of the gas consumed.)
Now, only continue reading if you have milk in the house. I have been adequately reminded of Tami's rule that you don't post about food if you don't share the recipe. I posted about Kaitlyn's Tunnel of Fudge Birthday cake, and less than 24 hours passed before the recipe police were on my tail! This cake was really good. Kaitlyn does not like rich, overly sweet things, and she really enjoyed this cake that has more of a dark chocolately taste than the overly sweet birthday cake with an inch of buttercream frosting. Enjoy this recipe:

Quick Tunnel of Fudge Cake
from the Chocolate from the Cake Mix Doctor cookbook
A similar recipe won Ella Rita Helfrich a $5,000 prize in 1966 in the Pillsbury Bake-Off

Filling:
1 1/2 cups milk
1 pkg (3.4 ounces) chocolate fudge pudding and pie filling mix (not instant)
1 cup semisweet chcoolate chips
1 Tbsp. butter

Cake:
vegetable oil for misting the pan
flour for dusting the pan (Or you can use this - it works great!)
1 pkg. devil's food cake mix with pudding
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup water
4 large eggs
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 cups finely chopped walnuts (I omitted these because the birthday girl does not like them)
1. Place the milk in a medium sized sauce pan and whisk in the pudding mix. Cook, stirring over medium heat until the mixture comes to a boil - 4-5 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the chocolate chips and butter. Stir until the pudding is smooth and thickened and the chocolate has melted. Set the pan aside.
2. Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 350. Lightly mist a 12-cup Bundt pan with vegetable oil spray, then dust with flour. Shake out the excess flour. Set the pan aside.
3. Place the cake mix, oil, sour cream, water, 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 thick and well combined. Fold in the walnuts, making sure they are well distributed throughout the batter.
4. Reserve 2 cups of the batter. Pour the remaining batter into the prepared pan. Spoon the pudding filling in a ring on top of the batter, making sure it does not touch the sides of the pan. Spoon reserved batter over the filling, smoothing it out with the rubber spatula. Place the pan in the oven.
5. Bake the cake until it springs back when lightly pressed with your finger and is just starting to pull away from the sides of the pan, 45-50 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 a rack to cook completely, 20 minutes more.

You can drizzle this with chocolate icing if you wish. We sprinkled powdered sugar on ours and it was delicious.