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My first foray into The Cake Bible.

Narrative

Unfortunately, I’m making a habit of baking two cakes per week because the first try fails. One week, I had to supplement Lemon Velvet with Devils Hazelnut, and this week, I had to supplement the rose cake with this one. The rose cake wasn’t as moist as I’d have liked (I really should have brushed it with some syrup), and Peter apparently canceled a movie night to accommodate my cakes n cocktails night…so I had to serve something.

It was the perfect chance to break out my brand-new Cake Bible. I decided that I’d try a Bundt cake—yes, Mrs. Pilsch, I’m contradicting myself, cooking it despite the lack of decorating capability—as the Bundt recipes are so interesting. They tend to have all the nuts and interesting textures that fascinate me. And this time around, I didn’t have time to decorate, so I needed something glaze-able.

My mother’s old Bundt form looked a little…worse for the wear…so I had to go out and buy a new one. At TJ Maxx (where else?), I eschewed a Kitchenaid pan (too dark) and a cathedral bundt (too cutesy) for a simple ol’ Wilton “fluted cake pan” ($7.99!) I had to fight the urge not to buy the Bundtlette pan instead (the six mini-cakes pan). “Why,” I always wonder, “buy a regular pan when you can buy small cute ones?” It must be a preemie-baby, ego-related drive. This time, though, I fought the urge and did the responsible thing, buying the basic pan I’ll continue using for years and years.

The specific recipe—the Golden Grand Mariner cake—I chose because 1) it was basically the only Bundt form recipe in the book (most call for round 9×1-1/2 pans or tube pans), and 2) I had all the ingredients in my cupboard (including unblanched almonds, mini chocolate chips, bittersweet chocolate, sour cream, superfine sugar, orange juice, and Grand Marnier). Plus, who doesn’t want a cake with chocolate chunks inside the batter? Yum.

The mixing stage went smoothly, from weighing the chocolate to roasting the almonds, from tossing the chips in flour to mixing each egg addition for only 20 seconds at a time. I nearly dropped of hunger and impatience after I added the roasted chopped almonds to the flour mixture:

It smelled heavenly! Also, thanks to Rose’s advice about using a hand mixer (if you have a stand mixer, you follow the directions to the tee; but if you have a hand mixer, you must bump up any “medium” setting to “high”), I actually used the correct speed on my mixer (you can’t see it well, but it’s on the brisk 8 setting):

Out of the oven and out of the pan, it looked and smelled great. It really was golden, at least on this side:

It has a cute little mushroom shape, due to the untrimmed domes on the bottom (rather than call the cake unevenly baked, we’ll call it cute):

I’ll have to work on making a level Bundt bottom next time. After spearing the cake and brushing on a syrup made of Grand Marnier, sugar, and orange juice, I made the ganache, making sure to document each stage of the emulsion process.

1. Mixing the ganache, early on (the white chocolate chips are a special addition for Andrew, who doesn’t like the bitterness of the traditional, all-bittersweet ganache):

2. A little later (Joseph Hall says that the process should first result in a mixture that resembles chocolate milk that’s not quite mixed yet):

3. Three more minutes (the white chocolate chips resist incorporation):

4. Ah, we have emulsification (white chocolate chips still seen, just a little, because they’re not as high quality chocolate as the dark stuff; also, it’s thinner than typical ganache because I kind of overshot the corn syrup):

I love how the ganache covered the cake board, just as royal icing would:

Once we cut the cake, we saw that Rose’s trick of coating the chopped chocolate with liqueur and then flour really does make the chips float in the batter, not sinking to the bottom:

Thankfully, I had a decent cake to serve my guests on Tuesday night!

What I Learned

1. Trust the expert! Followed to the T, with i’s dotted, the expert recipe will turn out (as long as you don’t overbeat).
2. To suspend chocolate chips or nuts in batter, use an acidic batter (ie, add sour cream) and toss the chips in a liquid, then in flour (so the flour on the chips will “cling” to the batter instead of falling via gravity).

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