Nordic Ware Moulds: Make a perfect bundt cake!

Making a beautiful bundt cake is very easy, because it is the bundt pan that does the work of baking a beautiful cake, but there are some guidelines and tips to use bundts correctly and bake perfect cakes.

The truth is that in all these years working with Nordic Ware we have become great specialists in this type of moulds, and we really wanted to gather all the knowledge and transfer it into a post: in this post we tell you the virtues of bundt moulds and how to use them . If you are interested in these moulds, don't miss it!

About bundt molds

When you see Nordic Ware baking pans, you may have thought, “Oh, they’re just like the ones from the 1950s.” No, they’re not the same, they’re the same. David Dalquist, engineer and founder of Nordic Aware, began making these pans in 1950. Today, more than 60 billion items have been sold worldwide. Every year, many of us wait for the new products that arrive from Minnesota, USA, where the still family-run factory is located, which continues to carry out almost all of its production in its country.

However, the origins of this mould are much older and closer to us. After the Second World War, Central European emigrants who fled to the USA began to look for a mould with which to make their traditional kugelhopf, a cake whose ceramic mould is characterised by having a central chimney that provides optimal baking. Thus, due to the need to recover their traditions, the Nordic Ware brand was born, replacing ceramic with cast aluminium with a non-stick coating.

Cakes baked in these moulds, with their characteristic hole in the middle, are called bundt cakes and no, they are not particularly difficult or complicated. A simple yoghurt 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 with chocolate, for example, we will have a wonderful cake like this chestnut and chocolate bundt cake .

Tips for preparing a Bundt Cake

I must admit that I fell in love with the Nordic Ware brand at first sight, and that's the best way to put it. When I saw the first cakes and biscuits made with moulds from this brand, I simply thought that I would be incapable of making something so perfect, so beautiful, with such a traditional, elegant and simple presentation. However, since the first Nordic Ware mould fell into my hands, I was able to see that it is not necessary to have special skills, high-level culinary knowledge or to be a top-notch baker. The mould does everything, you just have to know how to use it.

For this reason, I am giving you some tips to keep your mold for many years, as if it were the first day and with the best results:

1. It is necessary to grease the inside of the mould with butter before inserting the dough (it is not advisable to use oil) . In addition, you must insist well in all the nooks and crannies of the mould so that nothing is left ungreased. You can also use release sprays , which are very practical to apply and do not leave any aroma or taste.
2. They should be filled to a maximum of 2/3 of their total capacity, since there must be room for the dough to rise.
3. Once filled with dough, we tap it lightly on a table or counter to make sure that the dough reaches all the edges of the mould and that no air bubbles are trapped in the dough.
4. They should be baked on a baking rack, not on a tray, so that the heat will rise through the central chimney and bake evenly on all sides.
5. Before you take it out of the oven, you must make sure that it is well done . This is vital for it to come out correctly: a slightly undercooked cake will not come out. To make sure it is well done, follow the baking times in the recipes, and look at the sides - you will see that the sides of the cake have separated a few millimetres from the mould. Using a bundt thermometer also makes the task easier, because it tells you whether the cake is done or not (in a bundt mould or in any mould!).
6. Once baked and out of the oven, you should wait 10 minutes before removing it from the mold . Never use metal tools to do this, just turn the mold gently and it will come out on its own.
7. To clean the mould, you should use a sponge with a little soap, never a scouring pad or anything that could damage the internal surface and spoil the non-stick effect.
8. The best cakes to make with these moulds are those with a consistent body, heavy, so that they fill all the nooks and crannies without any problem and the shape is perfect. Without a doubt, Nordic Ware 's success is that its bundt moulds bake fabulously, and you only need to see their poise to understand that they have nothing to do with other moulds of their kind that have come onto the market later.

In this video I tell you in detail all these tips and more, from baking times to other tricks to get perfect bundts:

My bundt pan is sticking, how do I fix it?

Bundt pans always pop out of the pan. If they don't, it's either not baked properly or one of the guidelines mentioned above has not been followed correctly, because even following these easy tips, the pans pop out of the pan. In fact, so much so that sometimes they seem to slide out of the pan!

• If one day it seems like it's hard to unmold, there may be a small piece of burnt dough on the top edge that won't let it come down: separate that tip of dough from the mold with your finger or with a small silicone spatula.
• Another day you may have waited too long to unmold and it has settled to the bottom: in that case, turn the mold over onto the surface you are going to unmold and tap the mold with a wooden spatula, or slightly lift the mold off the frame (with the mold inverted to remove the cake) and release it several times, to help it go down.
• If a day comes when a bundt pan sticks to one spot, 95% of the time it's because it's "saturated" with the oil from the batters we put into the pan (despite cleaning them, the pans have imperceptible pores and grease 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 with kitchen paper go through all the crevices and cavities of the pan, from the inside out, to remove all the oil and residue that the KH7 helps us to remove. Clean well with the kitchen paper and then wash the pan with soap and water as usual. You'll see how, after that tune-up with the degreaser, the cakes come out fabulously well again.

Now I imagine you're wondering which one is my favourite. Well, although I like them all, why deny it, my heart goes to the anniversary mould , 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 decades.

Any recipe can turn out well in these wonderful moulds, and having a Nordic Ware mould is like having a small treasure, one of those that are inherited from generation to generation. Once you touch it and notice its weight, the quality of its materials and the elegance of its designs, you understand that it is well worth the price paid for a utensil that gives us so much satisfaction.