- Alex Levine
If that is true of Irish coffee, it certainly also must be true of this splendid orange liqueur-infused cake. You've got grain, meat, sugar/fat, alcohol, and even a bit of fruit thrown in for good measure. I started with a simply divine recipe for rum cake that my mom makes every holiday season. I thought about using Orange Crush, but I figured, "What-the-hey? Go for the good stuff and splurge on a bottle of Grand Marnier." The biggest problem I had with this was figuring out how to grease and flour the inner tube of the tube pan. There are endless possibilities with this cake - chocolate and Crème de Menthe, chocolate and Grand Marnier, white or chocolate cake and Amaretto, plain old Captain Morgan Silver Spiced Rum, chocolate and cherry cordial, orange and Captain Morgan Coconut Rum. Oh boy, looks like I'm going to have to buy stock in Liquor Barn just to make cake! As a side note, my Papaw makes a cake like this but with Mountain Dew. Who knew! So you could also make it with a white cake mix and any variety of soda you like. Ale8-1 anyone? Orange Crush could be substituted in this recipe if you are not a fan of baking with alcohol. I'm including a photo of the original recipe, passed down to my mom from a family friend named Agnes Tincher from Beattyville, KY, lovely lady that she is.
Grand Marnier Cake
Cake:
1/2 cup pecans, chopped
1 Duncan Hines Orange Supreme cake mix
1 3.4oz pkg Jello Instant Vanilla Pudding mix
1/2 cup Grand Marnier (or other orange liqueur)
1/2 cup oil
4 eggs
1/2 cup water
zest of half one naval orange, finely chopped
Glaze:
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup rum
zest of half one naval orange, finely chopped
1/4 cup juice from orange
1. Grease and flour a 10-inch tube (or bundt) pan. Preheat oven to 350º F.
2. Chop and sprinkle pecans over bottom.
3. Using a vegetable peeler, remove only the orange part of the peel of one naval orange. Chop the zest into very small pieces.
4. Combine cake mix, pudding mix, and half of orange zest in a large mixing bowl, stir.
5. Add eggs, oil, water, and liqueur. With either a stand mixer or hand-held mixer (or if you are a brave soul, a wire whisk), beat the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients on low until incorporated well enough there are no dry spots. Then crank up the speed to medium/high and beat for 2 more minutes until the batter is smooth and has puffed up a bit.
6. Carefully pour the batter into the prepared pan. Be sure that you don't dribble batter down the center tube or on the sides of the pan above about the midpoint of the height. Otherwise the batter might burn, and while it probably won't affect the outcome of the cake, it might produce a maliferous odor or cause some difficulty when you try to remove the cake from the pan.
IMAGE COMING SOON
6a. This is an optional step, but I took the pan to the dining room table and dropped it repeatedly from a height of approximately an inch. DO THIS CAREFULLY! You do not want to tip the pan. Pick it straight up and then simply let go. Don't slam it down on the table, just drop it. Why would I drop my cake? Because there are air bubbles trapped inside the batter. Have you ever cut a cake that looked like baby Swiss cheese inside? That is from all those air bubbles that you baked. They stayed intact long enough to leave a hole or a tunnel in your batter. If you drop the cake pan onto a hard flat surface over and over, most of the air bubbles will pop or work their way to the surface of the batter and pop there. I do this with sheet pans too, especially if it is a wedding or birthday cake.
7. While the cake bakes, assemble the ingredients for the glaze. Juice the orange and measure what you need. Place all glaze ingredients into a medium sauce pan, but do not place over heat yet. *I doubled the glaze recipe, but I do not recommend doing that unless you intend to measure it and use half on the cake and reserve half for serving.
8. Now, this is where a bit of baking experience comes in handy. If you look at the original recipe, there is no baking time noted. If you go by the back of the cake mix box you are going to grossly underbake the cake. I started checking at about 35 minutes, and it was still very glossy on top. I did not set a timer or even do an accurate count up of how long I baked the cake, but I will estimate it at somewhere between 45-55 minutes. I finished the batter in the bowl at precisely 8 pm and took the first "done" photo at 8:57. In between finishing beating the batter and removing the fully baked cake, however, I spread the batter in the pan and dropped it to pop the bubbles in the batter. That took about 5 minutes, so I'm going to estimate my actual cook time at 50 minutes. However, oven temperatures vary which will affect your bake time. You do not want to overbake this thing!!! Start checking it early, and check it often. Once the top loses its gloss and looks solid, start the touch test. If you touch it ever so gently and it doesn't spring back but instead sounds like you popped dish water bubble foam, IT IS NOT DONE! Check it again in 5 minutes. That is how you will catch the cake at the precise moment it is done and not allow it to become overbaked which would result in a dry cake. When baking, 'tis better to err on the side of caution and pull a cake a minute or too early than to let it go too far. Remember it will continue to bake in the pan for a few minutes after you remove it from the oven. Check it in the center between the side and the middle with a toothpick or a piece of dry spaghetti. If the pick comes out dry with just a few (or no) crumbs clinging to it, you are good to go.
9. Within 5 minutes turn the cake out of the pan onto a wire rack to cool for 5 minutes. Then transfer the cake to a serving plate with sides to catch any glaze runoff. The pecan side goes UP, which means you will have to either very carefully hold the cake in your hand while you switch from wire rack to serving plate, or you will need to employ a second plate for the flip.
10. While the cake cools a tad bit, get the glaze cooking. Please, please, please, I cannot stress this enough: DO NOT TAKE YOUR EYES OFF THE GLAZE WHILE IT COOKS!!!! I looked away for a split second when my glaze was not even bubbling yet. When I turned back it had foamed up and spilled over the edges, down into the cap, down the vent into the oven, between the cabinet and the stove, and all over the countertop. This is very important to remember: Watch the glaze at all times. Don't forget to add the reserved zest of half the orange. Cook the glaze over medium-low heat. What does cook mean? Bring it to a boil and keep it there for a full 2-3 minutes. This will dissolve the sugar and make the glaze a little bit syrupy.
11. Once the glaze is done, poke holes in the cake. I used a long-tined (dinner) fork, BUT I found that the glaze did not penetrate deeply enough into the cake to satisfy my desire for a moist, almost-soggy-but-still-with-a-nice-texture cake. Next time I will use a metal skewer or a knife with a long-but-thin blade to pierce holes in the cake. The problem I had was that the pecans had baked together somehow and it was difficult to pierce holes in the cake without pushing the pecans down into the cake.
12. After you have sufficiently pierced the cake, it is time to glaze it. I used a spoon to apply the glaze because it is easier to control how much you use and where it goes. You can also pour it into a heat-proof measuring cup with a spout and pour it on, or you could use a ladle. A large serving spoon works fine. If you doubled the glaze, you need to measure out half of it to use on the cake. I did not use enough glaze on the cake, and there was a LOT left over.
