Mint Chocolate Chip Pound Cake

The recipe for this cake came about completely by accident, but it was an instant hit!  Maddie came home a month or so ago needing to take a cake to school the next day.  Since it was 6 at night, dinner wasn't made and I did not want a trip to the floor, I scrounged around and realized I had the ingredients for chocolate chip pound cake.  The recipe called for a box of instant chocolate or vanilla pudding.  I didn't have just regular pudding but I had a box of magic color changing pudding that Jason's mom had brought months ago- it had gotten pushed to the back of the cabinet and forgotten but I found it in my hunt for ingredients.  So I figured why not (knowing that a room full of hungry 5th graders were not going to be hard to impress especially if chocolate is involved!).  Anyway, we used the pudding, and WOW- that batter turned the most amazing (and by amazing I mean VERY bright and sort of obnoxious...) shade of green.  Maddie was a little distressed that the cake would seem weird so I scrounged around in my cabinets again and decided that by adding a bit of peppermint extract, the green color would fit right in and voila, mint chocolate chip pound cake!  This time, I stuck with the regular recipe (using the regular box of vanilla pudding) and just used a few drops of green food coloring along with it.  I also went online and found a recipe for peppermint glaze which finished it off very nicely!

Mint Chocolate Chip Pound Cake

1 box yellow cake mix (I have yet to use yellow- the first time all the store had was coconut and this last time, it was white chocolate...)

1/2 cup sugar

1 box instant vanilla pudding

2/3 cup water

3/4 cup oil

4 eggs

8 oz sour cream (for those in the ME- I used labneh which worked great)

6 oz chocolate chips (I chunked up a semi sweet chocolate bar)

1/2 tsp peppermint extract

Combine first 6 ingredients.  Mix well.  Stir in sour cream, chocolate and extract.  Bake 350 for 1 hour.  Cool in pan 10 minutes then remove from pan and cool completely.  Top with peppermint glaze

Peppermint Glaze

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1/2 tsp peppermint extract

hot water

Combine sugar and extract.  Add hot water until desired consistency reached.