All About the Bundt Pan

the appetizer:

Cake Keeper Cakes: 100 Simple Recipes for Extraordinary Bundt Cakes, Pound Cakes, Snacking Cakes, and Other Good-to-the-Last Crumb Treats by Lauren Chattman, includes recipes like Red Grape, Polenta, and Olive Oil Cake; Stout and Chocolate Snacking Cake with Chocolate-Stout Glaze; and Cranberry-Walnut Bundt Cake with Maple-Espresso Glaze; as well as information on Bundt Pans.

The Bundt Pan

Cranberry-Walnut Bundt Cake

The Bundt pan, invented in 1950 by H. David Dalquist, the founder of Nordic Ware, is the world's best-selling cake pan, with more than 50 million sold worldwide, which may be why it merits its own holiday—November 15 is National Bundt Pan Day. Even if you haven't baked a Bundt cake in recent memory, chances are you have a pan languishing in a kitchen cabinet. There are several reasons why Bundt cakes are so popular:

While cakes baked in round or square pans can dry out around the edges before the center is done, cakes baked in a tubular pan bake evenly and relatively quickly.
Bundt pans hold roughly twice the volume of round or square pans, yet the average Bundt cake takes only a few minutes longer to bake than the smaller cakes.
The pan's folds produce a beautifully sculpted cake, so there's no need for fancy frosting and decorating.
Not only is the dramatic shape of a Bundt cake attractive, but it also provides a guide for even slicing of the cake.

Buy a Bundt Pan

Since its introduction so many years ago, the Bundt pan has been redesigned numerous times, so you can now make a Bundt cake in the shape of rose, a Star of David, or a stand of evergreen trees. With these more complicated molds, and their deeper folds, comes a greater risk of the cake sticking to the inside of the pan. Even if treated with a nonstick coating, a pan may grab and hold a portion of your cake as you attempt to unmold it. To win this battle, be sure to grease your pan well, brushing vegetable shortening into every nook and cranny, and flour the pan, to boot. Or try a grease-and-flour spray like Baker's Joy, which combines the two steps and guarantees good coverage of even the most intricately patterned pans.

from:
Cake Keeper Cakes
100 Simple Recipes for Extraordinary Bundt Cakes,
Pound Cakes, Snacking Cakes, and
Other Good-to-the-Last Crumb Treats
by Lauren Chattman
The Taunton Press 2009
$17.95; Paperback Original
ISBN: 1600851207
ISBN 13: 978-1-60085-120-9
Reprinted by permission.

Buy Cake Keeper Cakes