Hello everyone!  I am new here but not new to baking - it’s my favorite thing in the world!  I have been reading through my Cake Bible trying to find a recipe to use for my new 10-cup Bundt castle cake pan and not sure what to use.  Most of the recipes would need to be doubled to fill this castle pan and not sure if that would work.  I want to make something exciting for a special occasion for a little boy.  Perhaps a plain butter cake would be a little boring, looking for something more interesting.  Possibly a marble, or possibly a swirled multi-colored yellow cake.  I’m just not sure what is suitable in a Bundt cake pan as I haven’t really used them before.  Any advice would be appreciated!!!

- Sandra

Hi, Sandra!

Welcome!!!!

I think if you went marble or swirl, you’d lose the detail of the castle—I’d stick with a “solid”, myself.  One cake I know will work is the Perfect All American Chocolate Butter Cake (from The Cake Bible - TCB), because Rose doubles (I think—don’t have my book handy) it to make the Chocolate Velvet Cake in Rose’s Heavenly Cakes (RHC).  Most butter cakes will work as bundts—it’s the other way around that can get sort of sketchy!!! 

Also, in RHC (if you can get it from your library, perhaps) in the wedding cake section is a cake made in the stadium pan.  It’s the Chocolate Domingo Cake (from TCB) that has diced, very fudgy brownies mixed into it.  If you can’t get RHC, you can make your favorite fudgy brownies (not cake-like, but fudgy), let them get good and cold so you can dice them without them sticking everywhere, mix them into the domingo batter and then bake.  If you like the concept, you might be able to go with “blondies” and a yellow cake!

Also, if you want a color contrast but also want to preserve all the castle detail, you could bake a yellow cake and then pour a chocolate laquer glaze over it.  I expect it would be slow going to catch all the various “things” of the castle, but it would make it look very spooky, I’ll bet!!!!

Another thought is, if you’re good at piping (and I’m not), is you could make a solid cake of any color/flavor and then pipe details in frosting of any color/flavor.  Maybe even put some colored jimmies in the windows to look like stained glass!!!

Looking forward to hearing about it, whatever you do!!

—ak

Thanks for the tips!  I’d rather do something besides chocolate (it’s not this little boy’s favorite), but was also hoping for something more interesting than plain yellow.  I doubt I can completely frost the cake due to the detail in the mold so would like a really delicious cake recipe that doesn’t need a lot of frosting.  I do have frosting decorator tips and am pretty handy with them so plan to do some detailing that way.

The whipped cream cake in RHC is delicious and is meant to be baked in a 10 cup bundt.

sandra_t - 12 April 2012 08:08 AM

Perhaps a plain butter cake would be a little boring, looking for something more interesting.  Possibly a marble, or possibly a swirled multi-colored yellow cake.  I’m just not sure what is suitable in a Bundt cake pan as I haven’t really used them before.  Any advice would be appreciated!!!

- Sandra

Hi Sandra,

If you are considering a multi-coloured marble swirl, the all occasion yellow downy cake takes gel food colouring very well - I used it for a layered rainbow cake and was able to achieve really intense shades.
I’ve had success with add-ins to the white velvet and yellow butter cakes where the ingredients have remained suspended in the batter: chopped nuts, mini chocolate chips, chopped oreos (for a cookies ‘n’ cream flavour), chopped candy bar. Adding muti-coloured sprinkles to the batter would be fun too. Perhaps the cake recipient might be interested in something along those lines?

One suggestion I have for filling your cake pan with a thick batter is to “paint” the interior of the pan with a thick layer of batter using a pastry brush, making sure it fills every crevice, nook and cranny before filling the pan with batter; I find that this helps to eliminate the air pockets that may mar the surface of the cake - tapping the filled pan on a counter usually isn’t enough to do this. (I didn’t follow my own advice with the last bundt I made and was disappointed with the unsightly holes on the surface )

It sounds like a fun project!

The whipped cream cake recipe is here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?docId=1000407421

Also, in the Cake Bible in the back section there’s a party pound cake (yellow/vanilla) that is made in a bundt.  It’s in the wedding cake section, I think.  You could add mini chocolate chips if you needed to spruce it up.

My vote would probably be for either the sour cream butter cake or the golden cream butter cake, both are layer cakes from the Cake Bible.  Buttermilk country cake is nice, too. 

In Rose’s Heavenly Cakes, there’s a marble bundt that is very good, perhaps you could check it out from the library if you’re not ready to buy a copy.

If the birthday buy likes fruit, you could also take a look at the pear almond cream cake from that book- it’s delicious.  Yellow sour cream cake with pear slices and a little almond cream inside.

Wow thank you for all the advice!  I am going to “practice” with my castle bundt pan for my little grandson first - but then I want to to enter into a cake competition my street is having in June for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee!  I think I could have fun using the castle for a royal theme.  I don’t think the cake could be frosted completely but I can use frosting decorator tips to highlight the details.

There are many good ideas here so haven’t decided which one to use yet. Marble cakes seem to be uncommon in England so maybe that would make for an interesting choice, or adding colored sprinkles or colored swirls to one of the yellow cakes.  The color theme is the same as the USA, red, white and blue.

Is the cake judged solely on appearance or is taste a factor?

Just my opinion but I think marble will detract from the intricate design of the cake.

Here is a picture of a light colored cake. All the pan’s features are visible. I think that will be lost with marble. But, like I said, JMO.

Here is a dark cake

I believe the cakes will be judged on both taste and appearance.  I understand what you mean about a marble cake, probably not a great idea!  I’m still so undecided what to do LOL!!!

Go to Amazon.com and see the pictures customers submitted of their finished cakes. They are really, really nice. Also, read some of the reviews, it might help you.  Here is the link:

http://www.amazon.com/Nordic-Ware-Cast-Castle-Bundt/dp/B000F5M044/ref=sr_1_2?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1334423354&sr=1-2

Whatever you choose, think about a way to seal/moisturize the cake- perhaps brush syrup all over the outside- as the cake will lose moisture quickly without an all-over frosting. 

Another suggestion- can’t believe I didn’t think of it earlier as this is one of my all-time favorites cakes- the golden lemon almond cake from Rose’s Heavenly Cakes.  If you decorate with the white chocolate-lemon buttercream that is paired with that cake in the back of that book (Golden Dream Wedding Cake), it will be sublime. 

Here’s a picture of the Golden lemon almond with that buttercream (this picture has sugar on the outside, which you could dissolve in the syrup instead of leaving for the outside):  http://myyellowkitchen.com/2010/04/22/golden-05-lemon-almond-cake-page-37-hilo-take/

Great idea, FG—it was really fun seeing what everyone did with the castle on Amazon!

Julie I found that recipe online and it sounds pretty amazing - I’m wondering though if it would be something children would like?  I had no idea my castle cake mold would be so difficult LOL!!!  As far as frosting, I would love to cover it completely but not sure if it will work with all the detail?  I may need to do more than one “practice” cake! I wonder if a very thin drizzle could be done and then details with frosting decorator tips done over the top of that.

That’s why I was thinking a laquer glaze—it is supposed to show every detail underneath it, which is why it’s important to make sure your ganache is very smooth (usually it’s over ganache).  Then you could decorate on top of the laquer, if you want to.  I will say that I’ve never used it, myself, and I don’t know if you can put it directly on cake without an ‘undercoat’ of ganache or buttercream.  But it’s dark and shiny, so it would give the castle a really interesting look!

Oh dear, I may have to do a pre-practice practice cake!!!