Zinfandel Cake

Hey guys, this week I've been running low on creative cooking juices, so I've been taking suggestions. This one is from Nicole :)


Originally she suggested rum cake, but I haven't any rum in the house, so I've decided to use some zinfandel instead.


The recipe for the cake I'm making is an adaptation, or rather a hybrid, of this Golden Vanilla Cake and Mariann's Easy Rum Cake. It is actually neither of these recipes, but like most of the recipes I use (for now and in the future) it's going to be something of my own creation in the end (:

Letting the butter warm up

I would suggest that you decide to make this cake at least an hour in advance of when you want to start mixing and measuring so that you can take your butter out of your fridge and give it time to warm up to room temperature--also do this for your milk. This makes a huge difference in making the cake, it will be much easier for you. You will need:

• 1 1/2 sticks of butter (3/4 cups of butter, or about 170 grammes)--I used unsalted, you may use salted if you wish
• 397g/14 oz./2c of sugar
• 283g/1 1/4c milk at room temperature
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 390 g/ 3 1/4c of flour
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 c of zinfandel or spirit of choice (rum would work as well)
• 1 package of instant pudding mix, I used vanilla

Note: If you want, before starting to mix the ingredients--but after letting to butter warm up--you can preheat your oven to 325˚ F. I find it's easier using a scale because there is less measuring with cups since you pour directly into the bowl, and to make it less mess I use a big bowl.

Be sure to zero the scale before weighing ingredients

Once your butter is at room temperature, like mine is, then you should add it to the sugar and mash it like mashed potatoes--well, not necessarily mash, but just incorporate it. My weapon of choice is fork :3 You know that it is done once you see all the butter and sugar mixed together.

Add your sugar

Ready for mashing

While mashing, your butter sugar mixture should look something like mine did in these pictures.

Try to break up the butter into smaller chunks

If you mash the butter that's on sugar, they mix together without difficulty

It's so fluffy :D

Once you have a butter sugar mix that looks like mashed potatoes, or whatever you would call that, it's time to add the milk and vanilla, then mix it best as you can...at this point it would switch to a whisk...I did after a while of fork mashing.


Note: Mine didn't come out too smooth, so don't worry if yours doesn't.

That's not pretty...but that's the way it is, think oatmeal.

Now add in the flour and baking powder, and stir gently so that your batter won't be lumpy. I like to start stirring on the side in small circles and slowly make my way to the center of the bowl and start making larger and larger circles. You can stir any way you like, just know that if you beat it your batter is likely to be lumpy.


Here's what I mean:

Starting on the side in a little circle

Making bigger circles now

The flour piles up on the sides, just scrape it down as necessary.

Afterwards, stir in the eggs one at a time. Sometimes the eggs are watery, which makes them easy to mix in, but other times they have a gooey part that is like jelly and harder to mix in--watch out for this and this egg will take longer to mix in completely.


Note: It's good to check your eggs by cracking them into a separate bowl, just in case they smell...fishy...like one of mine did.

The batter is lumpy before the first egg

First egg added, batter smoother, bit lumpy

Second Egg added, batter smoother

Third Egg, batter smooth

Fourth Egg added, so silky smooth!!

The eggs make the batter nicely colored, and also smoother. I add the zinfandel (mine is a white zinfandel from california that smells faintly fruity and sleepy). This will make the batter separate a little bit, but don't worry too much about that. It will be coming together later. My batter was a bit more liquidy on the sides of the bowl so I made inward strokes with my whisk to incorporate the zinfandel more into the batter.

Pour slowly, don't spill

Stir slowly since it's easy for splashes at this point

After adding the zinfandel (or spirits of choice) your batter should look something like this.

Not quite so smooth, but still smooth

This is what I meant by separation, looks a bit like curds

Then I add the instant pudding mix and stir it in gently, just like how I stirred in the flour earlier. After a few minutes of stirring the batter has a uniform yellow color and it is ready to be put into the bundt pan (if you haven't already, preheat your oven to 325˚F).

I use Jell-O pudding, in case you're wondering

Stir gently or else it will be lumpy

Golden color :)

Note: I don't like struggling to get the cake out of the pan, so I sprayed the inside of my pan with cooking spray (every nook and cranny).

If you don't have cooking spray, you can also make a coat of butter inside, and sprinkle a layer of flour over that

Pour the batter into the bundt pan and make sure that the top of the batter is even, otherwise one side of the cake will be taller than the other. Place this into the oven and bake for 55 minutes. You can check if it is ready to take out of the oven by inserting and removing a skewer, and when the skewer comes out clean the cake is ready. If it isn't ready after 55 minutes, it should be ready after an hour.

Tilt the pan left and right to even out the batter

Note: If you use a toaster oven, and the bundt pan fits with less than 3 inches at the top, it's likely that the top will be a little burnt, like mine. This is because the heating element is so close to the cake, and if you're using a toaster oven like I did, it can't be helped. Just saw off this part with a bread knife after the cake cools.


After taking the cake out of the oven, let it cool for 30 minutes and up to an hour. You want the cake to be faintly warm, or not warm at all, when removing it from the pan.


Mine didn't come out of the pan nicely D:
(That's likely because I washed it before spraying it, and the water prevented the spray from forming a complete barrier on the pan--make sure your pan is dry before use folks.)


But it TASTED DELICIOUS <3


Little piece all wrapped up, tender cake.

<3

Happy Eatings,


Sweet Pea