Happy Bundt Cake Day! (Plus A Recipe)
LatestSince’s it’s National Bundt Cake Day, it seemed like a good opportunity to once again share the recipe for the one thing my grandmother could cook.
As I wrote last year around this time,
My grandmother was the worst cook you’ll ever meet – her cooking was a combination of passive-aggression and performance art and rotten ingredients and to be avoided whenever possible. The one exception was Wine Cake, which goes to show that it’s fool-proof. Wine Cake is the traditional birthday cake on that side of the family, a tradition I’ve continued. It’s one of those objectively revolting, 1950s-style recipes that makes no bones about its chemical antecedents and becomes more unfashionable every year. In a bid for respectability, I once worked out an all-natural version, but it just made me miss the original. Friends of mine have brought Wine Cake to feuding families and CIA picnics and block parties, and it’s always a hit. Anyone can make it.
I stand by those words, only with even more conviction: in the months since writing that, I have perfected the wine cupcake, and found that miniature wine-cakes justify the purchase of a multi-cake tin from a fancy baking store. And I’m no longer going to apologize for the ingredients (although, okay, I might not advertise them.) After all, with Sandra Lee as our first lady, convenience foods seem practically mandated.
Sherry Wine Cake