Cake #22: Paula Deen's Almond Sour Cream Pound Cake

I volunteered to bring a cake to the Parent-Teacher conferences as an excuse to make another cake out of All Cakes Considered. But why would I go to all the trouble to make a cake for the teachers when I can't even try it myself? (At the time I envisioned presenting a beautiful cake to deliver to the teachers' lounge)... so I made 2 cakes. Might as well just double the batch, to make it easier, right?
I now have a note on the top of the recipe page that says: DO NOT DOUBLE THIS RECIPE.

1st, the kitchen aid couldn't handle all the cake batter, so I had to take some out to finish mixing it. Not a big deal, except apparently kitchen aids don't mix quite as well on the bottom when they're filled to the brim. Who knew?!

2nd, I had a bundt pan and a tube pan and thought I'd just use both of those for the cakes. Turns out the bundt pan has a lot more space in it than the tube pan, so both pans ended up being waaaay too full.

3rd, I decided to save time & energy by baking both cakes at the same time! Never a good idea.

The cake says to turn on the oven and add a baking sheet w/ almonds on it to toast for 3 minutes, then toss and toast another 3 minutes (while it's preheating). I did this, and left the almonds in an extra 3 minutes, and they could've gone longer. If they're in there while the oven is preheating, maybe 10-12 minutes. If you put them in after it's already preheated, maybe more like 6-10 minutes.

So, what happened was, the cake is supposed to bake for 80 minutes. 40 minutes in, the smoke started pouring out of the oven. I peeked at it and discovered that both cakes had risen over the top of the pans and were now dripping off the edge. Luckily, it was an unseasonably warm day in February, so we were able to open all the doors and windows to air out the house.


 I threw some tin foil in the bottom of the oven to catch the rest. I moved the cakes so that they were both on the same rack, to try to get them to cook more evenly and also so that one would stop dripping into the other. I took the tube cake out after 80 minutes but the bundt pan cake took an extra 20 minutes.
(After removing the tin foil)

Despite being full of butter and poured into well-greased pans, they both fell apart when I took them out.

We tried carefully cutting the edges of the bundt cake so that it would come out cleaner. Didn't happen.

 

My husband liked the crispy edges the best, which probably developed from the smoky oven and/or overcooking. Both cakes did turn out and taste fine, but the presentation wasn't exactly award-winning, so I cut the teachers' cake up before taking it to the conferences. Clean-up duty was a bitch.