I’ve had a few failures in my two years of Baked Sunday Mornings, but none crushed me as much as this one.
For one thing – this is a caramel cake. With rum frosting. I’ve been dying to make this cake ever since the book came out. It’s got all my favorite flavors, plus I get to use a fancy Bundt pan.
The cake batter is pretty simple to make. It’s got caramel sauce in the batter, plus plenty of butter.
I started checking my cake at 35 minutes – my oven tends to bake a little fast. My skewer came out clean, but the middle section still looked a little underbaked on the top so I left the cake in another 10 minutes. Skewer clean again, no jiggly batter.
I set the cake pan on a rack and left it to cool. I came back in the kitchen an hour later and was greeted with a sunken cake. The entire middle section was undercooked. Faulty skewer!
If I was making this for anyone besides us, I probably would have dumped the whole thing and started over. But I couldn’t bear the thought of all that butter and sugar going to waste, so I decided to see if I could salvage some of it.
The frosting is very rich – butter, rum, and more caramel sauce, whipped up in a food processor. It’s really good.
I carefully unmolded my cake and frosted it as quickly as possible. The caramel shards on top are a nice touch, both for visual appeal and for texture.
The cake began to melt from the inside as soon as I unmolded it, but Larry managed to snap a few photos before it looked like a complete disaster. I will be making this cake again – it’s got potential!
To get the recipe and see the other entries from this week’s Baked Sunday Mornings head on over to Baked Sunday Mornings.
- Burnt Sugar Bundt Cake with Caramel Rum Frosting (Baked Explorations, p. 141)
I’m sorry this one didn’t work out for you! But you would never know it from the picture – it looks gorgeous!
oh no! although you could never tell from the picture that this one is a fail! wonder if you could have scooped the uncooked middle and maybe filled it with caramelized apples or something!
btw, read your post about culinary school and wish you all the best! i wish i had the guts to do it!
Ha – it’s held together with toothpicks and one side is already caving in at the point the photo was taken!
Thanks for the good wishes, I hope it’s fun.
Sheri, I forgot to mention that I had to bake the cake longer, too. It’s really a shame and so odd that so many of us had trouble with what should have been an easy cake. For me, it was the frosting – which I wouldn’t have minded nearly as much if we were just having it at home…I loved the flavors, too.
My bundt fell a bit as well, which I mostly attributed to taking a risk at 7,000 feet altitude and not altering the recipe… But it’s still edible and next time I will make adjustments! ;)
I too had to bake it longer. But your picture did look lovely!
The cake looks very pretty! I realized I had to bake mine a full hour – it sounds like everyone had that issue. I have a fairly unreliable oven, so I am never sure if it’s me or a recipe.
Awww, Sheri! I’m with ya… I love the flavors in the cake, but it was definitely a tricky one! I give you an A for a valiant effort – it looks lovely, truthfully! But – I understand your frustration completely. The cake was weird for me on this second time around with it (too blond and not enough caramel flavor) and the frosting a complete runny mess. You were not alone!
Sheri, what a bummer — that is just the worst, to be surprised with underdone cake at the very end. But it does look very pretty nonetheless! This cake definitely seemed to cause a lot of problems for a lot of bakers… so much for a simple bundt cake!
Sheri- the cake LOOKS lovely! As I was eating it I kept thinking about somehow incorporating baked apples…
I’m off to read about your culinary school adventure!
Oh no, I’m sorry yours didn’t work out! I had to bake mine for an extra ten minutes before it seemed done. At the 45 minute mark it was clearly still liquid, I could see the cake jiggle when I moved the pan. I kind of wonder if it should be baked at 350 instead of 325, it seems like a lot of people had to bake it for much longer than called for. Your photo looks great!
I feel ya, Sheri! This one made me want to cry. Like you I’m determined to try again… It’s got some very appealing flavors and it would be a shame not to give it a second shot. Let me know how you fare the next time!
I had to bake mine longer too and the middle collapsed during one of my last toothpick pokes to see if it was done. Definitely some issues with this one. These are some determined bakers though! Your picture looks pretty darn good considering what you went through :-)