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The richest, plain tube pan cake I've ever made, is in Staff Meals cookbook, by David Waltuck, from Chanterelle. It is called cream cheese pound cake

3 sticks unsalted butter
8 oz. Phila. cream cheese at room temp.
3 cups sugar
6 large eggs
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
3 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp salt

-Preheat oven, 325, lightly butter 10" tube pan(bundt pan) ,line bottom with parchment if using tube pan
-Beat butter and cream cheese in mixer on med. til smoothe
-Add sugar ,beat on high til light and airy(5 min)
-Add eggs one at a time,beating after each
-Add vanilla, flour and salt at once, beat until just incorporated. Don't overmix
-Pour batter into pan, shake lightly to even out top
-Bake til golden brownand toothpick comes out clean, about 1 1/4 hrs
-place on cake rack, let cool 20 min, then remove from pan

when cooled, top with confectioners sugar, or maybe a berry compote

www.nordicware.com has the best Tunnel of Fudge recipe for bundt cakes. It's their classic and a favorite of pretty much anyone who has ever tried it. And that's quite a lot of people. Otherwise, did you see my post of the Nut Goodie Bundt Cake from about a week ago or so? If not, I can post it again. :) It's definitely in the gooey, rich, decadent category.

This recipe came over with my grandparents from Berlin in the 30s. It's been my dad's birthday cake all his life, and I'm proud to have taken up the tradition after my grandmother died. It's not terribly moist, but it is a dense, delicious marble pound cake. I generally forego the cocoa/water slurry in favor of 3 or 4 melted and cooled squares of baking chocolate.

1 package Oetker baking powder
(or enough for 4 cups flour)
4 cups unsifted flour
1 cup milk (lowfat OK)
2 cups white granulated sugar
6 medium or 5 large eggs, separated
½ pound unsalted butter
¼ tsp dried lemon peel
¼ tsp lemon extract or 1 tsp lemon juice
¼ cup baking cocoa
3 tbsp tap water
butter for greasing bundt pan
breadcrumbs for bundt pan

Preheat oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit.

Separate the eggs 2 hours before baking starts. Bring milk and butter to room temperature. Grease and crumb pan to 2/3 its height.

Sift flour together with baking powder.

Cream butter in large bowl for 10 minutes with mixer. Should show bubbles. Add egg yolks one at a time, along with small quantities of milk, flour, sugar, and lemon peel. Mix each portion for 3 minutes with mixer before adding next portion. Add lemon extract with last portion.

Beat egg whites to dry peaks. Fold into batter carefully. Divide dough in half. Mix cocoa with water into a paste and mix paste into half of the batter.

Fill bundt pan with alternating globs of batter. Bake for 65 minutes. Test with toothpick halfway between center and rim. If clean, remove If not, bake for another 5 or 10 minutes and try again. Remove from oven and cool on wire rack in pan. When cake is cool to the touch turn form upside down and remove cake from pan by tapping on bottom and sides. Top with confectioners sugar.

Just in case you are considering a vanilla pound cake, do try the Elvis Presley pound cake on Epicurious. You must cook it the night before you want to serve it (it tastes very eggy fresh from the oven, but mellows beautifully overnight). It's awesome and I am itching for an excuse to make it again.

The anniversary chocolate sour cream bundt cake recipe from Nordic Ware is very, very good. This recipe is hard to locate. It's on the box of the Williams-Sonoma 60th anniversary Nordic Ware bundt pan. There is a similar recipe on W/S web site, but it isn't the same (not as moist). The Nordic Ware site doesn't have one even close. If you can find it do try it. I don't usually add the ganache icing; it seems like guilding the lily.

Thanks for all the great suggestions. I'll definitely be trying some of these.

Meanwhile, my son has decided he wants a banana cake for his b'day... since I'm still thinking about bundt cakes, I'm thinking that's what it should be. I happen to have a fantastic banana cake recipe from a really old cookbook that seems like it would be perfect for a bundt, since it's super moist and very dense. However, the recipe is written as a layer cake.

Does anybody know how to adapt layer cake recipes to bundt pans? I can figure out the volume issue, but it seems like a bundt would need to bake longer than layer pans. Is that true? And what about the temp? Does it need adjusting?