My bundt cake adventures

I have a complete set of those silicone baking pans that I got one time at a sale at Kohl's. I have been dying to try the bundt pan for ages, and when I saw this recipe in my book, I decided to give it a try.

Fresh Apple Cake with Brown Sugar Glaze

3 c cake flour
2 c sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
3 eggs
1 1/2 c vegetable oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
3 c finely chopped apples **you will need about four apples
1 c finely chopped pecans or walnuts

Combine all dry ingredients in a bowl and blend with a fork. Beat eggs in a mixing bowl with electric mixer until pale yellow and foamy. Add oil and vanilla and beat well. Add flour mixture by spoonfuls and continue to beat on low until flour disappears. Add apples and nuts and stir until uniformly distributed throughout batter. Scrape batter into greased pan; use a 13 x 9 inch pan, two 8" or 9" round or square cake pans, or a bundt pan. Bake at 350 for 50 minutes and cool on a wire rack. Prepare glaze while cake is cooling. Combine all ingredients in a medium saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring often, until mixture boils gently. Cook for 3-5 more minutes or until glaze is like caramel. Spoon the glaze all over the hot cake as soon as it is ready and let glazed cake cool completely.

Glaze:

1 c lightly packed brown sugar
1/3 c unsalted butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp or 1/8 c evaporated milk, half and half or heavy cream

What I liked about this recipe: Very, VERY easy. GREAT with ice cream.
What I disliked about this recipe: The instructions are not super clear if you want to use a bundt pan.
Cool kitchen gadgets used: I used my silicone bundt pan for attempt #1 on this dessert. Keep reading.
Tastiness factor: Excellent, excellent, excellent. If you like apple pie and want that taste in a cake, TRY THIS. Both P and my sister V thought it was incredible and the first attempt was gone in about a day and a half.

Okay, so what happened with this cake, you wonder?

I made it the first time, albeit, after I had had a few glasses of wine, and decided to use my silicone bundt pan since I had never used it before. Probably not the best idea, since I didn't really stop and think about the recipe while I was making it and ended up flipping the cake out onto a pan while it was still hot so I could glaze it. BAD idea. The cake collapsed and I had a ooey gooey mess of a cake with glaze on it. The SECOND time I made it, I used the 13x9 pan and glazed the cake while hot but did not remove the cake from the pan. It came out much better. P says he still prefers the first way better because once it cooled, it was just a big sloppy apple mess in a dish and was delicious, but the OCD in me likes the 13x9 better because it is neater. And McKenna loves the cake too. Win win all the way around.

So the moral of the story is...if you must have a bundt, leave it in the pan and don't remove it while hot. The cake will not set.

But man, this is an AWESOME cake. I made it the first time with walnuts and the second time with pecans, and I personally prefer it with pecans, but that's just a matter of taste.