OH MY GOSH Becky look at her BUNDT!

I have a problem, lets be real I have loads of problems because I'm a hot mess, but nothing that cant be handled.  The problem I bring to you today is my severe addiction to anything with sugar in it.  Sweet tooth does not begin to describe my obnoxious sugar addiction.  I'm pretty sure I could break a crack addiction easier than my sugar addiction. Its also probably God's best invention, other than me! :)  This lifestyle change for Grant and I has been going pretty well, but I got a hankering for something delicious.  I also recently found my bundt pan that I got for our wedding and have never used, so it was decided, I would make a bundt cake.

Oh the possibilities for a bundt cake are endless.  There are only like 8 gagillion different types of bundt cakes.  So as any good pinterest addict would do I hit the boards.  I must have pinned a hundred different types of bundt cakes. (I feel that this is a good time to mention that Blogger is not recognizing bundt as a word...get it together, how would it make you feel?)

Anyways, there were so many different kinds of bundt cakes, there was a puddle of drool on my desk once I was done pinning.  I was going to be taking this on a trip over the weekend though, so I couldn't get too crazy because I wanted it to be able to travel well.  So using my in depth knowledge of the texture, density, and moisture of different types of cake I chose to make a pound cake bundt cake!  At this point after hours of pinning bundt cakes, I realized I had no recipe for a pound cake.  At this critical juncture one decides whether they will use a random recipe or whether they will consult the food gods.  I chose food god, meaning Paula Deen.

Look at that amazing woman, who wouldn't want to follow in her culinary footsteps?

So it was decided that I would make Paula Deen's Mama's pound cake. The most important thing to remember when baking is that it is actually an exact science.  When you are cooking you throw in a little of this and a dash of that, in baking you cant do that or you end up with ugly nasty lumps of ew! And then people make faces like this....

So follow the recipe. Don't try to be a hero.

The Recipe:

Ingredients
1/2 pound (2 sticks) butter, plus more for pan
1/2 cup vegetable shortening
3 cups sugar
5 eggs
3 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for pan
1/2 teaspoon fine salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

With a mixer, cream butter and shortening together. Add sugar, a little at a time. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating after each addition. Stir dry ingredients together in a bowl and add to mixer alternately with milk, starting with the flour and ending with the flour. Mix in vanilla. Pour into a greased and floured tube pan and bake for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.

I found that it is very important to alternate the milk and the flour mix, otherwise you end up with a weird situation. Again, follow the directions or the baking fairy will come after you and she is a nasty little lady.

Also it is important to ensure that the cake doesn't stick.  I have found that getting some Crisco on a paper towel and covering the whole pan in a very thin layer,just making it greasy, then covering it in flour is the most effective way to get the cake to pop right out.  Some people use bakers spray, its whatever works best for you.  Make sure on the bundt pan to get all the nooks and crannys though.

Now most pound cakes do not have a glaze, but most bundt cakes do.  Since I was getting all fancy and creating a hybrid that rivals Klaus's vampire/werewolf hybrids in the Vampire Diaries, I needed to create a glaze.  I decided on an orange butter cream.  Now usual butter cream icing is thick, because its icing.  So I wanted the flavors but not the texture.  Luckily with the glaze you can just throw stuff in and hope it works, unless you are not a baker, then don't do that. 

The Glaze:

2/3-1 Cup of light cream (I used heavy whipping cream and it got a little stiffer than I wanted)

about 1/3 Cup of powdered sugar

1/2 stick of melted butter

Zest and Juice of one orange

Mix the cream and butter in your mixer until they are mixed together well, then add the powdered sugar.  Mix well then add the orange zest and juice.  Don't whip between adding ingredients to avoid the glaze getting too thick. 

SOOOO what happened? Well amazeballs deliciousness happened, DUH!

It was approved by everyone who ate it and my taste buds were ecstatic! I had never made a bundt cake before and now I can tell it will be happening more frequently than my diet should allow! :)