December 6, 2019 – Beware of the Bundt Pan

         This week has been a baking disappointment.  Maybe my baking angel has decided to flick her magic wand and turn things into half-baked messes for a reason.  Maybe my baking angel doesn’t like my girth this year and figures this is a way to curb me from making any confections and eating them.

         Just maybe, I am imagining all these things – maybe not.

         Constant interruptions on the telephone – measuring this, measuring that, creaming sugar and butter - the telephone rings – you don’t answer the land line and then the cell phone rings. I better get that – doesn’t make any difference anymore what phone rings they are ROBO CALLS!

         Maybe picking up the last bottle of cream of tartar on the shelf – I had to climb up to reach it by putting my foot on the bottom shelf and stretching with my tippy-tippy fingers to knock it over and roll it forward.  Maybe I should have thought twice about buying it – do you think – it was probably out of date.  Was that the reason I tossed an entire two trays of thumb print cookies in the trashcan?  Yeah, maybe.

         This morning’s fiasco – I decided to actually use my stand mixer – I bought it a couple of years ago to make bread and then it has been sitting on a shelf untouched as I only think of it after the fact.  I drug it out.  Now that I have put all the ingredients away and assess the counter top – that stand mixer makes a mess, even of a bigger mess than using an old-fashioned big bowl and shoulder muscles to stir the dough.  Maybe I will donate it to the church bazaar next year – it didn’t improve my baking situation in this instance.

         Or, how about not being able to find my Bundt Pan.  Maybe it was taking up too much real estate space in my cabinet, or maybe there is something sitting on top of it in the recesses of my hard to access cabinets camouflaging it.  But, I couldn’t find it and last week I purchased a new Bundt pan for that very reason as I hadn’t made a Heidelburg Cake in a while. [Recipe below.]

         Maybe I didn’t get the international cooking memo that all Bundt pans are not created equal.  Since my last pan was fluted differently and this new one is taller, I assumed it was a real Bundt Pan, meaning it would take a Bundt cake recipe.

         HEIDELBURG CAKE

1 ½ cup cold water

1 cup seedless raisins

1 ½ tsp. baking soda

2 cups sugar

3 cups sifted flour

1 cup Wesson or Crisco oil

1 cup chopped nuts

3 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

½ tsp salt. 

6 cup Bundt Pan – Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Bring water and raisins to a boil in a small saucepan.  Then add baking soda, stir and let cool to room temperature.  In a large bowl, cream sugar and eggs then add oil.  Mix well, next add flour, salt, vanilla and nuts.  Then add the water raisin mixture.  Mix well.  Pour into a greased and floured Bundt pan. [The new secret is no more than 2/3^rd full. – if you have extra make cupcakes.]

Bake at 350 degrees for 40 to 50 minutes – until tooth pick comes out clean.

Do not frost.  This is a good cake for brunch or afternoon teas, makes nice thin slices.  I serve with soft butter or soft cream cheese.



         Everything mixed, I have buttered and floured my new pan, and as I am pouring the batter into the pan it seems to be filling the pan rather full.  My phone rings.  I go to answer the telephone and it was a real call – not a Robo call this time.

         When I come back  – about 2 minutes – I look at the level of the batter and think – is that too much, maybe I have forgotten if this cake rises up a lot or not at all.  Self-doubt creeps in as I put it in the oven and start the washing up.

         Within a minute, the cake has risen and is spilling out over the top and smoke is pouring out of oven vent.  I turn on the exhaust fan, I open the kitchen slider to get more fresh air into the house.  Now that the spillage has charred on the bottom of the gas oven stove, there is plume black smoke pouring out.  It looks worse than a TV Sitcom.

         Maybe the smoke alarm will go off next. The husband chimes in,

         “What the hell is going on?”

         “Just deal with it, " I say hopefully, "Maybe I can save it.”

         I pull the spilling cake out of the oven and plop it on top of the stove.

         I quickly wash, dry, butter, and flour a heart shaped cast iron pan that I use mostly for display and transfer the hot liquid cake batter into the fresh pan and shove it in the oven.  Maybe, I have saved it – maybe not.

         The black smoke subsides in about 5 minutes.  Luckily I didn’t burn myself with this foolish attempt at my now [in my mind] infamous Heidelburg Cake.

         Forty minutes pass, I test it, not done. Fifty minutes the timer rings, I test it – it is done.

         I pull the heart shaped cake out of the oven and immediate do the fluff trick – like you toss stir fry in a pan – you quickly raise and drop the pan to make it loosen in the pan.

         No, I am not waiting for it to cool on the rack for 10 minutes and stick to the pan – this pan is notorious for sticking.  I fluff it again from the other direction and it sounds like it has lifted from the bottom.  I take cooling rack, top it and turn it over – Maybe, just maybe I have saved a cake.

         I slowly lift the scalding pan with my silicone oven pads and it looks perfect.  It smells perfect.

         Maybe my kitchen angel is sending me a message; I just don’t know what that message is, unless it is:

        “Sweetie, you haven’t cleaned your oven in close to a year, maybe it’s time.”