Chocolate Pomogranate Cake

It is amazing how much can happen within two weeks' time. The coming few weeks are probably going to be BIG. And these special times call for more special cakes. To farewell my lovely colleague, I have made a Chocolate Pomegranate Cake.
I first thought that the idea of using pomegranate juice in a chocolate cake was a bit weird. In my mind chocolate and fruit juice are not something that go together very often. But again don't we add lemon juice and orange juice to teacakes and muffins all the time? I could not find the POM pomegranate juice so I used Blackford instead. The flavour of pomegranate does not really stand out but the juice helps keep the cake soft and light. The cake is delicious, rich in chocolate flavour without being too heavy at all.
This is probably the first time ever when I thought adding chocolate chips to the recipe is completely necessary. The cake itself is so soft and fluffy that adding any other texture seems to ruin it. I think a chocolate icing or thinly shaved chocolate would have worked better.
The original recipe was for a bundt cake. Since I do not own a bundt tin, I made it in a bread loaf tin, which worked just as well. As an experiment I have also baked some cupcakes using muffin tins. They won't fill up your moulds at the beginning but the cake would raise quite a bit, almost double in size.

Chocolate Pomegranate Cake

2 cup all purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup cocoa powder
2 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/4 cup pure pomegranate juice
dark chocolate chips

1) Pre-heat oven to 175 degrees C. Line a loaf tin with baking paper and slightly grease.
2) In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking soda and salt.
3) In a medium sized bowl, whisk cocoa powder with butter until smooth. One at a time, incorporate the eggs and vanilla extract. Add chocolate mixture, pomegranate juice into the flour mixture and stir until batter is well combined. Do not over-mix. Pour into the prepared tin and sprinkle the top with chocolate chips.
4) Bake for about 40 minutes, until until a tester inserted into the centre comes out with only a few moist crumbs attached.
5) Leave the cake in the tin for 5-10 minutes before turning out to wire rack to cool completely.

For cupcakes, reduce cooking time to approx 20-25 minutes