All-New Cake Mix Doctor - Anne Byrn [80]
Keep It Fresh! Store this cake, in a cake saver, at room temperature for up to one week. Freeze the cake, wrapped in aluminum foil, for up to six months. Let the cake thaw overnight on the counter before serving.
Recipe Reminders
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PREP NOTES
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Tips for Baking Perfect Bundts and Pounds
The basic cake-baking suggestions apply to Bundts and pound cakes but three need emphasizing for best results:
1. Prep the pan. With tube pans this means mist them with vegetable oil spray and dust them with about two tablespoons of flour. Turn the pan upside down over the sink and tap out the excess flour. You can also mist a Bundt pan and dust it with flour the same way. I don’t like vegetable oil sprays that contain propellants (alcohol) because they cause the outside of the cake to darken and toughen as it bakes. And Nordic Ware advises on its website against sprays that have lecithin listed as an ingredient because it leaves a gummy residue on the pan.
Nordic Ware makes highly detailed decorative Bundt pans, like the Star pan, the Festival pan, and the Cathedral pan, modeled after Notre Dame. You don’t want the cake to stick in the intricate grooves of these pans. The foolproof way to prep decorative Bundts is to grease them with solid vegetable shortening—that’s right, Crisco. Dip a small pastry brush into the container of Crisco and then paint every little nook and cranny of these pans (I often get one of my kids to do this while I am making the cake). Then add two tablespoons of flour, shake it around, and tap out the excess flour over the sink. Not only does this method create a beautiful crust on the outside of the cake, but the cake will invert and come out of the pan cleanly and beautifully every time. I promise!
2. Cool the cake. Let the cake cool for ten to fifteen minutes in the pan placed on a wire rack, then run a sharp knife around the edge of the cake to loosen it from the pan if you are using a heavy pan. Run a plastic knife around the cake edge if using a lighter weight pan with an enamel or nonstick surface that would be scratched by a sharp metal knife. Let the cake cool completely on the rack unless the recipe tells you to invert it onto a serving plate.
3. Choose the pan’s best side. Invert the Bundt pan one time on the rack so that it cools with the decorative fluted side up. This is the top of the cake and you just need to slide the cake onto a plate before glazing. On the other hand, the tube pan needs to be inverted once then inverted again onto a rack so that the larger side is up.
KEY LIME POUND CAKE
serves:
12 to 16
prep:
20 minutes
bake:
47 to 52 minutes
cool:
20 minutes
I DON’T KNOW ABOUT YOU, but the words key lime make me hungry. I think of a cool and creamy pie resting atop a graham cracker crust. And I think of this simple but satisfying Bundt cake flavored with the same key lime juice. A few years ago Margo Pope, who lives in St. Augustine, Florida, sent me this recipe, which she adapted from a local cookbook. One of the great features of the cake is that it’s versatile—you can use a yellow, vanilla, or white cake mix—but make sure you use real key lime juice, found on the juice aisle