Brown Sugar and Chocolate Chip Pound Cake with Maple Glaze

Sarah, our resident baker, is back from her exciting tour of France where she enjoyed sampling all the amazing French food – particularly the macarons, crepes, and pain au chocolat. Now she has recovered from her jet lag, she was keen to get back into the kitchen. Yesterday she baked a Brown Sugar and Chocolate Chip Pound Cake with Maple Glaze, just in time for her brother’s afternoon tea when he arrived home from Uni.

Brown Sugar and Chocolate Chip Pound Cake with Maple Glaze
(inspired by Technicolor Kitchen)

Ingredients:
Cake:
1 12-ounce (336g) package chocolate chips
3 cups (420g) all purpose flour (plain) sifted
2 teaspoons baking soda (bicarb soda)
1 teaspoon baking powder
¾ teaspoon salt
1 cup (226g/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 ½ cups (262g) light brown sugar, packed
2 ½ tablespoons vanilla extract
4 large eggs
1 cup (240ml) milk

Glaze:
1 cup (140g) powdered sugar (icing sugar), sifted
2 tablespoons pure maple syrup
2 tablespoons (or more) milk

Preheat oven to 160°C/325°F. Butter a 12-cup Bundt pan. Spray pan generously with nonstick spray. Dust pan lightly with flour*. Mix chocolate chips and 2 tablespoons of the flour in a medium bowl. Sift remaining flour with baking soda, baking powder, and salt into another medium bowl. Using electric mixer, beat butter and brown sugar in large bowl until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Beat in vanilla extract. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix in flour mixture in 3 additions alternately with milk in 2 additions, beginning and ending with flour mixture. Fold in chocolate chip mixture. Transfer batter to prepared pan, spreading evenly.
Bake cake until tester inserted near center comes out clean and cake begins to pull away from sides of pan, about 1 hour. Cool cake in pan on rack 30 minutes. Invert cake onto rack and cool completely.

Make the glaze: combine powdered sugar, maple syrup and 2 tablespoons milk in a medium bowl. Whisk until smooth, adding more milk by ½ teaspoonfuls if glaze is too thick to drizzle. Spoon glaze decoratively over top of cake; let stand at room temperature until glaze is firm, about 1 hour (can be made 1 day ahead. Cover with cake dome and let stand at room temperature).