The Versatile Pan

Just like the thrift shop you never know what treasures you might find at an art crawl. My friend and I spent almost 8 hours on an up north art crawl that covered some 34 miles with 13 stops on outside yards. There was a huge variety of art medium ranging from pottery, photography, fibers, jewelry, wood carving and many more types. Local artists were selling their wares. I was drawn to the whimsical lawn ornaments and wanted to capture a few snapshots but knew that it would be a " no, no" and frowned upon by the artists. One metal lawn ornament was quite unique. It was 6 feet high petal like flower with a bundt pan turned upside down as the center. And it looked just like the bundt pan I own. It was quite a creative design!

Looking online I also discovered that my bundt pan now comes under the category of vintage. Bundt pans have been around since the 50's but in the late 60's they really came into popularity when recipes using these pans won the Pillsbury Bake-Off contests. The founder of Nordic Ware in St. Louis Park, MN was responsible for designing this bundt pan fashioned after a German version of a bund pan. Bund means gathering in German. David Dalquist added the t to the word bund and his creation has taken off. Nordic Ware estimates more than 40 million original pans are in use. Today manufactures have taken bundt pans to new heights with various patterns in the pan and different sizes.

I decided to post my all time favorite bundt cake recipe that I took off the back of Pillsbury flour wrapper many years ago. I also posted another unique way to use a bundt cake if into cake decorating.

Please note on previous blog 2 photos are only available when you click on the symbol. I am not sure how to fix this and have tried a variety of things. These are my own photos and I would take suggestions from anyone who has used blogger site on how to remedy the situation.

Ring Of Coconut Fudge Cake

Ingredients:

• 2 cups of sugar
• 1 cup cooking oil
• 2 eggs
• 3 cups flour
• 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
• 2 tsp. baking soda
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 cup hot coffee
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1/2 cup chopped nuts
• optional: 2-3 TB. Kahlua

Filling

• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1-8oz softened cream cheese
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup coconut
• 3/4 cup chocolate chips

Directions:

• Grease well a bundt pan
• In a large bowl beat oil, sugar and eggs
• Add rest of ingredients BUT not the filling ingredients
• In separate bowl add filling ingredients and beat well
• Pour one half of batter in pan
• By spoonfuls drop cream cheese mixture over batter
• Add remaining batter
• Bake 350 for 60-65 minutes use a long toothpick/skewer to check for doneness
• Cool in pan 15 minutes take butter knife and go around edges for easier removal
• Invert onto a wire rack to cool

Frosting

• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 3 TB. cocoa
• 2 TB. butter
• 2 tsp. vanilla and 1-3 TB. hot coffee
• Beat and drizzle over cake

Check back tomorrow for two more tried and true bundt recipes