Nordic Ware Molds: Make the Perfect Bundt Cake!

Making a beautiful bundt cake is very easy, because it's the bundt pan that does the baking work of a lovely cake, but there are some guidelines and tips for using bundts correctly and baking perfect cakes.

The truth is that over all these years working with Nordic Ware we have become great specialists with this type of pan, and we were eager to gather all that knowledge and put it into a post: in this post we tell you the virtues of bundt pans and how to use them. If you're interested in these pans, don't miss it!

About bundt pans

When seeing Nordic Ware pans many people may have thought, oh, they're like those from the 1950s; no, they're not the same, they are the same. David Dalquist, engineer and founder of Nordic Ware, began making these pans in 1950. Today, more than 60 billion items have been sold worldwide. Every year, many of us look forward to the new releases from Minnesota, USA, where the still family-owned factory continues to produce almost entirely in its country.

However, the origins of this pan are much older and closer to us. After World War II, Central European emigrants who fled to the USA began searching for a pan to make their traditional kugelhopf, a cake whose ceramic mold is characterized by a central chimney that provides optimal baking. Thus, from the need to recover their traditions, the Nordic Ware brand was born, replacing ceramic with cast aluminum and a nonstick coating.

Cakes baked in these pans, with their characteristic hole in the middle, are called bundt cake and no, they are not especially difficult or complicated. A simple yogurt cake (yes, the one we all make at home) becomes a beautiful and delicate breakfast like this gingerbread bundt cake, with a perfect shape. If we also play with the ingredients and decorate it, for example with chocolate, we can get a wonderful cake like this chestnut and chocolate bundt cake.

Tips for preparing a Bundt Cake

I admit my love for the Nordic Ware brand was love at first sight, and never a truer phrase. When I saw the first cakes and cookies made with molds from this house, I simply thought I would be incapable of making something so perfect, so pretty, with that traditional, elegant and simple presentation. However, since the first Nordic Ware pan fell into my hands I found out that no special skill, high-level culinary knowledge or being a top pastry chef is necessary. The pan does everything, you just have to know how to use it.

Therefore, here are some tricks so you keep your pan looking like the first day for many years and with the best results:

1. It is necessary to butter the inside before adding the batter (the use of oil is not recommended). Also, make sure to get into all the crevices of the pan so nothing is left ungreased. You can also use baking sprays, very practical to apply, and they don't leave any smell or taste.
2. They should be filled to a maximum of only 2/3 of their total capacity, since you must leave room for the batter to rise.
3. Once filled with batter, give it a few light taps on a table or countertop to ensure the batter reaches all the edges of the pan and no air bubbles remain trapped in the batter.
4. They should be baked on an oven rack, not on a tray, so heat can rise through the central chimney and bake all parts evenly.
5. Before removing it from the oven, you must make sure it's fully baked. This is vital so it unmolds properly: a slightly underbaked cake will not come out. To ensure it's done, follow the recipe baking times, and observe the sides - you'll see the cake walls have pulled away a millimeter or so from the pan. Also using the bundt thermometer makes the task easier, because it tells you whether the cake is done or not (in a bundt pan or any pan!).
6. Once baked and out of the oven, you should wait 10 minutes before removing it from the pan. To do this never use metal tools; just invert the pan gently and it will come out by itself.
7. To clean the pan, use a sponge with a bit of soap, never a scouring pad or anything that could damage the internal surface and spoil the nonstick effect.
8. The best cakes to make with these pans are those with a firm, dense structure, so they fill all the crevices without problem and the shape comes out perfect. Without a doubt, the success of Nordic Ware is that their bundt pans bake fabulously, and you only need to see their heft to understand they have nothing to do with other pans of their kind that later appeared on the market.

In this video I explain all these tips and more in detail, from baking times to other tricks for getting perfect bundts:

My bundt pan sticks, how to fix it?

Bundt pans always unmold. If they don't, it's because it's not properly baked or some of the mentioned guidelines were not followed correctly, because following those easy tips, the pans release. In fact, so much so that sometimes it seems like the cake slides out of the pan!

• If one day it seems difficult to unmold, there may be a little bit of batter on the upper edge that's burnt and prevents it from lowering: separate that bit of batter from the pan with your finger or with a small silicone spatula.
• Another day you may have waited too long to unmold and it has settled on the bottom: in that case turn the pan over onto the surface where you will unmold and tap the pan a few times with a wooden spatula, or slightly lift the pan from the marble (with the pan inverted to release the cake) and drop it several times to help it come down.
• If a day comes when a bundt pan sticks in one area, in 95% of cases it's because it's "saturated" with oil that the batters themselves leave in the pan (despite cleaning them, pans have imperceptible pores and fat accumulates in them). In that case, it requires a tune-up, desaturating the pan, a deeper degreasing cleaning: apply a degreaser (ideally KH7) to the inside of the pan and use kitchen paper to go through all the crevices and cavities of the pan, from inside out, to remove all the oil and residues that the KH7 helps pull out. Wipe well with the kitchen paper and then wash the pan with water and soap as usual. You'll see how, after that tune-up with the degreaser, cakes will again unmold fabulously well.

Now you may be wondering which one is my favorite; well, although I like them all, to be honest my little heart belongs to the anniversary pan, in its large or small version and with which I made this highly recommended chestnut cake, which was an old recipe that had been circulating in my house for years.

Any recipe can work well in these wonderful pans and having a Nordic Ware pan is like having a small treasure, one of those that gets passed down from generation to generation. Once you touch it and feel its weight, the quality of its materials and the elegance of its designs, you understand that it's well worth the price you pay for a tool that gives us so much satisfaction.