This week's Sweet Melissa Sunday's recipe was chosen by Melissa of Lulu the Baker- a whole orange poppy seed cake. I almost sat this week out- I had a really busy week at work and my littlest one has the start of a chest cold, but I really enjoy Melissa's blog and wanted to bake along in support. When I saw how easy the recipe was, I decided to give it a go.
I have one other recipe in my collection that uses the entire orange- orange flax muffins. My mom found the recipe when we were running a "health week" at work. She came across it on a breast cancer awareness website. It was amazing how the bitterness of the orange peel dissipate d after baking the muffins. This recipe was super easy to throw together. I didn't even have to pull out my stand mixer this week! I decided to bake them in my mini bundt cake pan my sister gave me for Christmas a few years ago. I haven't had much luck using it in the past as it is a really dark nonstick pan and everything has a tendency to come out burnt. But I decreased the baking temperature to 325 degrees and kept a very close eye on it.
I ended up pulling the cakes out after about 25 minutes. The texture of the tops looked a little funny- not smooth like I'm used to with recipes like these. But they weren't burnt so I was happy. But then I went to take them out of the pan and evidently I didn't grease them enough. The first one broke when I took it out and I had to ease the rest of them out with a spoon. You can see from the picture that the cakes definitely stuck to the pan.
So the verdict... I really wanted to like these little cakes and I'm not sure if I was discouraged by yet another disappointing experience with my mini bundt pan, but I have to admit, this isn't amongst my favorites from the book. I found the texture to be a little off which I suspect may be due to lowering the baking temperature. I also did not have time to make the glaze for it as we were out all day so I would like to try the recipe one more time before I make a final decision.
Be sure to check out what the other Sweet Melissa Bakers thought of the recipe. You can find the recipe on Melissa's blog.
And here are some pictures from the gardens we visited this afternoon. They are a little more pleasing to the eye than my cake!
I love this orange lilly- the flower was so interesting!
And some beautiful yellow daisies- my favorite color!
10 comments:
Your cake still looks pretty good.
Hmmm... interesting. The texture of my cake was off too (it was too dense). I baked mine in a Bundt pan. I didn't have any issues releasing the cake because I used the "Pam with flour" spray. I'd highly recommend that. You would think that the Bundt pan (regular or mini-size) would do a better job than a loaf pan in baking the cake. Let me know how the cake turns out if you should ever make it in a loaf pan. Thanks :o)
I would describe the texture of my cake to be somewhat grainy, however I still enjoyed it. Like Hanaa, I used the "Pam with Flour" spray & I'm always very happy with the results. Your mini bundt is too cute!!! That beautiful lilly reminds me of your Orange Poppyseed Cake.
Your mini bundt cake still looks super good!
Your lil cake looks cute!
Your little cake does look tempting, but I must admit that this particular flavor combo just didn't make me want to get into the kitchen. Pretty flowers...especially the daisies!! Yellow is my favorite color, too. :o)
cute mini bunt pan, sorry it didn't work out for these
Sorry this wasn't a hit for you; at least it was a quick one, it's always disappointing when you spend a long time on something and you don't like it. Sounds like your mini bundt pans are due for a successful recipe!
Sorry this wasn't a hit for you! The mini bundt looks cute, though!
I'm bummed that you didn't love it, but thanks for baking with me this week anyway. I used to have (just threw it out!) a mini muffin pan that was dark nonstick, and I always, without fail, forgot to lower the oven temp and burnt my muffins. The really funny thing was, it was always lemon poppyseed muffins! I guess that's the only kind I ever tried in the mini pan!
Your mini bundt looks so cute! Sorry you didn't really enjoy it. Gorgeous flowers :)
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