Hi Rose!

Linda in NC

I would use the pan that they specify in the recipe- a ten inch bundt pan. An angel food pan is different and the stoneware pans don’t work well just as Hector said in the blog. Martha Stewart has a very similar recipe and she uses two loaf pans.
Good Luck

jan - 05 October 2010 07:45 PM

I would use the pan that they specify in the recipe- a ten inch bundt pan. An angel food pan is different and the stoneware pans don’t work well just as Hector said in the blog. Martha Stewart has a very similar recipe and she uses two loaf pans.
Good Luck

Thank you for your reply. I appreciate Hector’s advice along with yours. My issue is when I Google a 10-inch bundt pan image, several of them come up, and most of them look like my angel food pan. I truly am missing what the difference is between all of them. I do get why one would not want to use the stoneware pan because as Hector said it does retain heat for a very long time after it is removed from the oven. When I tried that recipe in that pan, the cake was so dry it was not good at all. I was not a happy camper that day.

This is really confusing me. I can bake a cheesecake like nobody’s business. They come out perfect every single time.. I can make normal from scratch cakes very good as well. This recipe with a bundt pan is really stumping me. I cannot figure out why it isn’t getting done in the center close to the tube to save me.

Thanks again for your replies. If you happen to have any images of what a 10-inch tube pan should look like or even where I can get one, I would appreciate the feedback.

Linda

I posted a bit about this on the blog.  I’m with Linda on the pan issue.  The recipe calls for a 10” tube pan, not a bundt pan.  An angel food cake pan is a tube pan.  Hector said an angel food cake pan is wider, but that would lead to overcooking, not undercooking.  If the pan has a dark exterior (which most angel food cake pans do not) then that could promote overcooking at the edges. 

As I said in my blog post, you can try cooking at a lower temperature.  On the blog you didn’t say what temperature you cooked at, so I didn’t know if you were at 375 or what.  Going lower than 325 is unusual, but it seems like the only likely solution other than switching pans.  (I’ve been experimenting with cooking brownies at 300 to keep them moist.)  I doubt that switching to a similar type pan such as a bundt pan or a pair of loaf pans is likely to make a difference, as these are basically equivalent.  The only other thing that comes to mind is to switch pans to something intentionally different to alter how it cooks.  So for example you could make half a recipe in the same size pan and see if the center cooks faster as a result of being thinner.  Or try a 9x13.  (Of course it might cook in only 30 minutes, so check early.) 

One thing to keep in mind is that your expectations may not match the recipe author’s expectations.  The recipe author may like dry pound cake.  (Most pound cake is on the dry side, in my experience.)  In find that most people are happy to eat any home made cake that has some sugar in it.  Even people who bake a little often aren’t very discerning.  I take failed baking projects to pot lucks all the time and get rave reviews anyway.  Most recipes are not written with particular attention to the exact type of pan or the exact quantities of ingredients.  The author wrote “3 cups cake flour”.  Since there’s no weight, that’s vague.  It could be anywhere from 10 oz to 14 oz of flour.  Maybe even more.  (I don’t use cake flour much, but I know that a scoop of all purpose can weigh 6 oz, even though Rose says only 5 oz on her conversion charts.)  How much flour have you been using? 

This recipe has a strange mixing method, in which you add the eggs alternately with the flour.  I don’t believe I’ve ever seen that before.  Anybody have any idea why you’d want to do that?