Cranberry Orange Bundt Cake 2023

I'd had my eye on this recipe for a Cranberry Orange Bundt Cake for a long time and yesterday seemed like the perfect time to try it. We don't often have both sour cream and orange juice in the refrigerator, and we were planning on spending February school vacation week skiing in Vermont.  A slice of this cake with a cup of coffee would be perfect before heading out in the morning! And I've been eager to make another cake in this beautiful glass Bundt pan.  

But... so much went wrong. I was happy when the cake slid out of the pan easily and was intact. But as soon as I tried a piece I realized there'd been a serious problem with the baking. The cake is dense, like a pudding cake, even though I did keep it in the oven until a skewer inserted in the middle came out clean. The recipe suggests a baking time of 55-70 minutes at 350 F.  I baked it most of the time at a lower temperature of 340, to compensate for the fact that my oven runs a bit hot. I didn't want the outside to get charred and ruin the design. I started checking the cake for doneness at 55 minutes and finally took it out at about 73 minutes. Could be all the opening and closing of the oven door, or the fact that I covered it with foil for the last 10 minutes, or that my baking powder is old, or most likely that it was baked at too low of a temperature. Probably a combination of all the above.  Still... that skewer was clean!  

I made a modification to the recipe and didn't put in the cinnamon swirl in the center.  Also, it was missing about 3 tablespoons of butter because that's all I had. This recipe calls for three sticks of butter, oh my! I'm not sure if the lack of butter affected the crumb. Similar recipes call for way less butter. But the missing sugar did make itself felt.  The cake is, frankly, a bit bland.

Another fail is that the glaze ended up too thin. The recipe calls for 3-4 tablespoons of orange juice for 1.5 cups of confectioners sugar. I used 3.5 tablespoons and if I make a similar glaze in the future I will only use 3. 

In the meantime, we've had to cancel our ski vacation after a phone call announcing that my mother passed away. Hungry after a sleepless night, I've already had two large pieces, and the guys didn't complain about it either. So, at least having the cake is comforting and no one but us will try it.

And yet I doubt I'll make this cake again.  It doesn't exactly have a happy association, it's very large for our tiny family, and I still don't know what went wrong.  Think I'd rather try a different recipe in the beautiful Bundt pan. And next time I have leftover sour cream, think black & white cookies! Leftover cranberries? Scones! Bakers are problem solvers and that's one of the things I love about this art.


Beautiful Bundt cake. Looks can be deceiving!





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