Castle Pan Update
Jun. 22nd, 2014 08:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livingdebSo I have finally used the castle-shaped pan I described before. I used a bundt cake recipe I had for a chocolate zucchini cake with orange zest and cinnamon in it. Actually I've been afraid of this recipe as well as the pan. The first time I made it, it was delicious and interesting. The second time it was oddly boring. But this time it came out delicious and interesting again. Yea!
Anyway, I ended up going with the Baker's Joy spray oil + flour. This is a lot more fun than regular spray oil because it puffs up.
Then I poured some of the batter in a cupcake pan so I wouldn't have too much in the castle pan. But it totally poured out all down the sides as it cooked anyway. Fortunately, I had taken the advice of setting the pan on a cookie sheet in the oven, so that was easy to clean up. And if I were going to err, I didn't want to err in the direction of not filling up the whole pan.
The batter that dripped into pools on the cookie sheet while cooking were crunchy and so delicious that I decided that this batter was also a good cookie "dough." Frankly, I like it even better as cookies than as cake. So that was an interesting thing to learn.
Then I waited the amount of time you're supposed to and flipped it out onto a cookie sheet. This worked perfectly! I could see all the details quite well.
Then I had to figure out how to get it to the beginning-of-summer party I was bringing it to. I put the pan back on the cake, flipped it again, and covered it with tin foil for transport. The cookie sheet seemed large to bring to the party (where there is always loads of food and barely enough room) so I took a plate that was almost bigger than the pan. Flipping the cake over onto that worked, too.
The cake got oohs and ahs. And compared to another cake made with a sand castle theme. Can you ever have too many sand castle cakes? Perhaps, but we did not.
After a while I cut into it because nobody wanted to. Still, not much got eaten. Fortunately, it saved well and I was able to finish it up myself in a series of afternoon snacks.
Bringing it home was messy; I had to clean the bag I brought it in.
The pan was basically easy to clean. Everything came right off, so long as you could get to it with a sponge. Which I could not. For the first time ever, I wanted one of those sprayer things for my sink. I let it soak.
Then I decided a spray bottle might work. But I couldn't find one in my house. I changed the water and let it soak some more.
Then I found a squirt bottle (like is sometimes used for ketchup) and tried that. It worked better than a sponge that couldn't reach but not well enough. But then I finished it up with a couple of Q-tips. (I had thought that was an original idea, but I see it mentioned in my original entry.) There were only a few spots I couldn't reach with my sponge, so it didn't take long to finish up.
And now it's clean and dry and put away.
So the biggest problem is that people don't want to eat it because it's too pretty. And the washing is not as fast as a regular cake pan. I think I will use it again sometimes, but this is not my new favorite answer to the question of what to bring to parties.
Anyway, I ended up going with the Baker's Joy spray oil + flour. This is a lot more fun than regular spray oil because it puffs up.
Then I poured some of the batter in a cupcake pan so I wouldn't have too much in the castle pan. But it totally poured out all down the sides as it cooked anyway. Fortunately, I had taken the advice of setting the pan on a cookie sheet in the oven, so that was easy to clean up. And if I were going to err, I didn't want to err in the direction of not filling up the whole pan.
The batter that dripped into pools on the cookie sheet while cooking were crunchy and so delicious that I decided that this batter was also a good cookie "dough." Frankly, I like it even better as cookies than as cake. So that was an interesting thing to learn.
Then I waited the amount of time you're supposed to and flipped it out onto a cookie sheet. This worked perfectly! I could see all the details quite well.
Then I had to figure out how to get it to the beginning-of-summer party I was bringing it to. I put the pan back on the cake, flipped it again, and covered it with tin foil for transport. The cookie sheet seemed large to bring to the party (where there is always loads of food and barely enough room) so I took a plate that was almost bigger than the pan. Flipping the cake over onto that worked, too.
The cake got oohs and ahs. And compared to another cake made with a sand castle theme. Can you ever have too many sand castle cakes? Perhaps, but we did not.
After a while I cut into it because nobody wanted to. Still, not much got eaten. Fortunately, it saved well and I was able to finish it up myself in a series of afternoon snacks.
Bringing it home was messy; I had to clean the bag I brought it in.
The pan was basically easy to clean. Everything came right off, so long as you could get to it with a sponge. Which I could not. For the first time ever, I wanted one of those sprayer things for my sink. I let it soak.
Then I decided a spray bottle might work. But I couldn't find one in my house. I changed the water and let it soak some more.
Then I found a squirt bottle (like is sometimes used for ketchup) and tried that. It worked better than a sponge that couldn't reach but not well enough. But then I finished it up with a couple of Q-tips. (I had thought that was an original idea, but I see it mentioned in my original entry.) There were only a few spots I couldn't reach with my sponge, so it didn't take long to finish up.
And now it's clean and dry and put away.
So the biggest problem is that people don't want to eat it because it's too pretty. And the washing is not as fast as a regular cake pan. I think I will use it again sometimes, but this is not my new favorite answer to the question of what to bring to parties.
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no subject
on 2014-06-23 02:27 am (UTC)no subject
on 2014-06-23 02:28 am (UTC)Use it again!
on 2014-06-23 04:40 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2014-06-24 02:15 am (UTC)Re: Use it again!
on 2014-06-24 02:16 am (UTC)I'll use it again sometime. I wonder how a flourless chocolate cake would work? Even if it failed, it would still be yummy.