“Never Fail” Way to Get Cakes out of Bundt Pan & Lamb Cake Tips Thread

[BakerAunt]

"Never Fail" way to get cakes out of Bundt Pans
I came across this tip for getting cake out of a bundt pan which I had bookmarked into my recipe files some time ago and then forgotten about.
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Basically the tip is to grease the bundt pan, sprinkle with flour, cocoa or sugar as usual - but then refrigerate the greased pan for at least 30 minutes before pouring in the cake batter and baking as usual. Should work the same with pan grease.
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Has anybody tried this and found it to help with difficult batters?
posted by: KitchenBarbarian aka Zen on March 29, 2015 at 11:36 am in Baking, desserts and sweets

reply by: Livingwell on March 29, 2015 at 12:35 pm
Interesting tip, Zen, but I still have the same question I posted to the link about whether putting the cold pan into a hot oven will cause it to warp (or explode if it's a glass pie plate). I hope someone who has tried it comes on and lets us know how it worked.

reply by: KitchenBarbarian aka Zen on March 29, 2015 at 1:18 pm
No, it won't cause an aluminum pan to warp, nor a glass baking dish to es-plode. They're made to handle such temperature changes. To a metal (or to properly annealed glass bakeware), there is not a significant difference between a 70F pan and a 40F pan. placed on a wire rack in a 350F - 450F oven.
Cast aluminum - which is what the good bundt pans are made of - is quite thick and sturdy. That little bit of temperature difference won't make any difference.

reply by: Livingwell on March 29, 2015 at 4:01 pm
Cast aluminum is what my Bundt pan is made of, so that may work, but I just can't get over putting ice cold glass in a hot oven. During the cold winter months, I line my pie plate with the crust and set it on himself's workbench in the garage while I prepare the filling. My garage doesn't freeze, but (I think) is still not as cold as the inside of the refrigerator, and that seems to work well. During the hot summer months, I put the crust in the refrigerator for only about 15 minutes, then take it out to warm up a bit before adding the filling. Talk about convoluted logic!

reply by: KitchenBarbarian aka Zen on March 29, 2015 at 4:55 pm
I don't chill my glass pie plates anymore since I started using the refrigerated pie dough mix - just isn't necessary, IMO. Of course I live in air conditioning so I don't have summer heat/humidity to deal with.
However when I DID used to refrigerate the crust in the pan, I never had any issues with my glass pie plates. I've never had one break, whether in a hot oven or otherwise.
These days when making apple pie, I will place the pie plate on wire racks for the first 15 minutes or so and then on a piece of foil on my baking stone - the foil to catch any drips, the baking stone to hurry up the browning of the bottom since the tops ALWAYS brown up faster than the bottoms for me, LOL! I do that because I fear (perhaps without reason) that the pre-heated, hot baking stone may produce more heat stress than just the hot air circulating around the wire rack
But I don't worry about putting a good glass pie plate, chilled or not, in a preheated oven on a wire rack. In 50 years I have never ever had a pie plate break - I can't remember so much as having one break after being dropped. And all of my pie plates are "new" Pyrex these days. Pie plates, loaf pans, casseroles, baking dishes - I've never ever had one break for any reason.

reply by: chiara on March 29, 2015 at 4:59 pm
I have done this found it works well. I have done it with pan grease--equal parts veg oil, solid veg shortening and flour. The reason I tried this is because I realized that greasing/flouring (pan grease) started to melt and bonded with the cake batter and caused the cake to stick when I made a Bundt pan in really warm weather. By refrigerating (I only did it for no more than 30 minutes), the grease/flour maintains a barrier with the batter rather than incorporating with it. Or at least that was my non-professional assessment.

reply by: bakeraunt on March 29, 2015 at 6:35 pm
I remember seeing similar advice for a German bundt pan that I bought.
With Easter coming next week, I will be baking a Lamb cake--the one in the heavy mold with the top placed over the bottom for the cake to rise into. (I think I've figured out how much batter to prevent overflow, but I will put it on a cookie sheet to be on the safe side. I spray it with Baker's Joy, which works well, but I will also try this hint and refrigerate the pan before adding the batter, putting on the top and baking it.

reply by: chiara on March 29, 2015 at 7:46 pm
bakeraunt--What kind of a cake do use use for your lamb cake? I usually make a dense pound cake. I once made a standard yellow cake and it was too fragile for the lamb mold. It fell apart.

reply by: bakeraunt on March 30, 2015 at 12:26 am
Chiara: I bought the pan from KAF--probably over twelve years ago--and it came with a recipe for "Yellow Butter Cake" to be baked in the lamb mold. If you are interested, I will post the recipe for you. I don't use their frosting, since I prefer my own simple buttercream.

reply by: swirth on March 30, 2015 at 6:49 am
This always makes me smile:

Adventures in Cake

reply by: buttercup on March 30, 2015 at 7:40 am
Saving thread. 🙂

reply by: chiara on March 30, 2015 at 9:02 am
swirth--Made me smile too! Making lamb cake is half about the misadventures.

reply by: sarahh on April 25, 2015 at 6:40 pm
I don't know how I missed this! Goes to show you I should check in more often and stop letting life get in the way of my online activities. 😉

I would love the yellow butter cake recipe!

The carrot cake lamb that lost its head (in the link swirth posted from my blog) was several years ago. Hope it gave everyone a smile, not just swirth! 🙂 That next year and this year I made a yellow cake from Joy of Cooking. This year it was the 4-egg cake, the earlier one was the Golden Yellow Cake, I think. Both were good, but still not satisfied with their sturdiness.

Last year I gave up and admitted defeat to the lamb pan. I made a chocolate cake in my swirly bundt pan. Everyone at Easter dinner missed the lamb cake, so I did one again this year. I forgot to trim the bottom, so he listed after I glued him to the plate with icing. I ended up laying him down on his back before he fell on his face!
Oh well, maybe next year I will get him to stand up and keep his head!

reply by: bakeraunt on April 26, 2015 at 12:53 am
Sarah: I do not have time to do it tonight, but I will put the recipe into this thread later this week. I think that you will be pleased with the recipe. I've not had any lamb collapses with it!

reply by: Livingwell on April 26, 2015 at 12:06 pm
I have never attempted a lamb cake, but wonder if a pound cake recipe would make a sturdier cake.

reply by: chiara on April 26, 2015 at 8:27 pm
livingwell--Yes, absolutely. Pound cake is much better for the lamb cake because it is sturdier and denser.

reply by: Livingwell on April 27, 2015 at 7:15 am
Thank you, chiara! The lamb cakes look fun, but I'm not sure I want to invest in another pan I won't use - LOL!

reply by: bakeraunt on April 27, 2015 at 7:21 pm
This recipe accompanied the Lamb Cake pan that I bought from King Arthur about nine or ten years ago.

YELLOW BUTTER CAKE
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1/2 cup (4 oz.) butter or margarine at room temperature (I use unsalted butter.)
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1 cup (8 oz.) granulated sugar or Baker's Special sugar (I use the extra fine sugar.)
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1 Tbs. baking powder
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1/2 tsp. salt
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1 tsp. vanilla
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1 tsp. almond extract
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3 large eggs (at room temperature)
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2 cups (8 1/2 oz.) King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
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1/2 cup (4 oz.) milk
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OPTIONAL: 3 Tbs. vanilla syrup or brandy for brushing the cake after it comes out of the pan.
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In a medium-sized mixing bowl, beat the butter until soft. Add the sugar, baking powder, salt and extracts and beat until fluffy. Add the eggs once at a time, beating well after each addition. Scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl to be sure all the ingredients are evenly distributed. Add the flour, 1 cup at a time, alternately with the milk, beating on medium speed until well-combined after each addition.
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Grease and flour the lamb pan. (My note: I spray it with Baker's Joy--a baking spray with flour. I've had no problems since I started using it.) Put the front of the pan "lamb-face-down" on the a baking sheet with sides, and spoon in the batter. Smooth the batter, and cover it with the other piece of the pan (the back of the lamb). NOTE: putting it on the baking sheet accomplishes two purposes. First, the pan will not sit evenly on the oven racks. Second, if you have an overflow, it goes onto the pan--which I line with parchment paper--and not the bottom of your oven! When I put all the batter in, I have had the cake overflow. I've been experimenting with reducing the batter. I've not quite figured it out, so that I get the back design of the lamb. I probably took out about 1 1/4 C last time--that is too much to remove, if you want the back design to show.
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Bake the cake, face down in a preheated 350F oven for 50 minutes. Remove the cake from the oven and remove the top (the back of the lamb), but let the cake remain in the bottom pan for 15 minutes. After the cake has cooled for 15 minutes, remove it from the pan. Bush all of the cake's surface with the vanilla syrup or brandy, if desired, then allow it to cool completely on a rack.
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Note, I've not done the brandy (family would not like it). I'm not sure what vanilla syrup is, so if you know, let me know.
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I do not use the frosting recipe that came with the cake. For years I used a C&H Vanilla Buttercream frosting. This past Easter, I used Susan Purdy's "Simple Buttercream" (without the optional egg yolk), and that's the one I will use from now on.
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I used mini-chocolate chips for the eyes and the nose. My mother always sprinkled coconut over the frosting, but my husband does not eat coconut, so I do not do that.
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Enjoy your Lamb Cakes!

reply by: sarahh on April 27, 2015 at 10:51 pm
Thank you so much, bakeraunt! I appreciate your taking the time type up the recipe.
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I am looking forward to another recipe that works in the lamb pan. I have used pound cake in the past, but we don't care for it with icing on it.
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My grandma always sprinkled coconut on the lamb for fleece. And she dyed coconut green to make grass on the plate. I don't like coconut, so I don't do that. 🙂
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Thanks again for recipe, and your notes. I have had good luck with filling the front half of the mold just shy of the top and then wiring on the back so it doesn't rise with the cake. My mold is lightweight aluminum so it won't hold together with just gravity.
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Might just have to test the cake before next Easter!
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My teenaged son wants to make a lamb out of red velvet cake for our annual Halloween party. And he wants to cut the head off before we take it to the party. Leave it to the teenager to find a gruesome use for the pan!

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