Cake and a Rant

No particular reason why I’m putting these two pieces together. As far as the cakes go, I’ve been wanting to make something like this for a while. And I’ve used my usual testing grounds… the office. So far, they’ve been pretty popular. Although next time I’ll make more glaze, make it more liquid (in other words, not completely reduce it to a syrup), and allow the cakes to stew in their own juices, so to speak, for a while. The glaze didn’t really soak in the way I wanted it to, in spite of everything being warm (cakes and glaze) and my helping them along a bit by poking little holes in the them.

Now for the rant. I find it disturbing how many ‘celebrity’ chefs are lending their names and faces to endorsing products that are just total crap. Almost as disturbing are the number of people who will blindly purchase said products without doing one bit of research because they firmly believe that these celebrities would not endorse products that they wouldn’t dream of using themselves.

Oh, I beg to differ.

I don’t tend to go for endorsed products. Don’t want to be told by someone else what I should do/like/buy/use. But I had been asked by a friend if I had any knowledge of a particular brand of cookware. I didn’t, but I told them I’d check into it for them. Didn’t take much digging to find out that this chef should be ashamed of themselves for attaching their name and face to something so inferior. This stuff was aluminum based, made in China, and distributed by, where else, Wally World (ick ptooey).

There’s your first clue.

Did some reading, and the “don’ts” associated with this particular brand reads like one of those commercials for a prescription drug whose potential side effects sound worse than the original condition in the first place.

My favorite one was that it didn’t recommend using them over a high heat.

Pots and pans.

Really???

By the way… I made the glaze for these cakes in a saucepan over high heat.

See how I tied it all together there at the end? Impressive, eh??

Coconut Rum Glazed Cakes
Adapted from Epicurious.com

3 cups sifted flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 1/2 cups sugar
6 large eggs, room temperature
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups canned unsweetened coconut milk

Preheat oven to 350°F. Generously butter mini Bundt pan or muffin pan (I made two batches of the mini bundts and still had enough for full batch of mini cupcakes as well); dust pan with flour. Sift flour, baking powder and salt onto a sheet of wax paper. Beat butter in stand mixer on medium until fluffy. Gradually add 2 1/2 cups sugar, beating until well blended. Beat in eggs 1 at a time, then extract. Beat in flour mixture in 4 additions alternately with the coconut milk. Transfer batter to prepared pans.

Bake cake until top is golden brown and tester inserted near center comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Cool cake in pan 5 minutes. Turn cakes out onto rack.

Meanwhile, prepare glaze.

Coconut Rum Glaze

1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup water
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup coconut rum

Bring butter, water and sugar to a rolling boil in a saucepan over high heat.  Reduce heat and allow to simmer until mixture thickens slightly.  Remove from heat and add rum.  Stir well.

Spoon glaze over warm cakes, making several passes as the cakes soak up the liquid.  Allow to cool.