Dessert - The Ugliest cake

My mother thinks that I don't make dessert often enough.  I've been known to bake dessert for birthdays, Easter and Thanksgiving.  That leaves over 345 days undesserted.  I pull an occasional dessert out of the hat, but for the most part we are dessertless. 

I bought Rose Levy Beranbaum's Rose's heavenly cakes because I couldn't resist the pictures.   I should have started with The Cake Bible but some of the desserts in this cookbook called out to me.

I made a bundt cake a while back.  I do enjoy a good bundt cake.  I remember having some difficulties getting the cake out in one piece.

Rose has a beautiful yellow daisy cake in her cookbook.  She bakes it in a Nordic Ware daisy cake pan.  It is  a beautiful pan cake pan that leaves daisies on the top of the cake, for say $35 dollars.  I am at the point in my life where I am trying to downsize the number of things in my kitchen.  I can't see spending the money for a spring time cake pan when Rose says that a fluted tube pan can be used instead.

Perhaps I should mention that many of the things in the kitchen that I am trying to downsize are over 25 years old.  The fluted tube pan, which I will refer to as bundt pan, has seen better days.  But remembering my recent difficulties, I was certain to well prepare the pan.  To no avail.  The top of the cake remained in the pan.  The bottom almost did as well, but I stuck a knife in and saved the day. 

Good news, I was planning on dividing the cake and filling it with berries and cream.  It self divided.  But it was no easy feat releasing the top; it came out in chunks.  Which I then covered with more cream.

I threw the pan out.  I'm not a big fan of throwing things out.  But my darling husband asked me what chemicals are being released by 25 year old nonstick pans that are way past their prime.  I have ordered a new pan.

The cake was delicious, ugly but delicious.   Here is a link to Rose's blog with a yellow cake recipe.