This is a metal bowl, 3-4" deep probably. Can I bake a cake in this? I have fondant and frosting left over from a project from earlier this week and am in a cake-making mood today. I'd like to just make a small cake. Would this bowl work? It seems anything metal would, but.... Thanks for your help.

I have never tried a bowl,but I have baked in a sm. coffee can (pumkin bread) so it seems that the bolw would work. good luck !

Thank you, Vlare. I'm thinking it'll work too, but I'd hate to waste the ingredients. I'll see how it goes.

Post back with your results. I would think it would work, also. But I'd like to know for sure.

I just read where someone bakes cakes in cookie tins and ships them to her loved one in Iraq. So if that works, I would think this would.

BTW, anyone wanting do this: don't ice it!! It takes three weeks (at least) for them to receive a package. She places the icing in a separate airtight container and also throws in a plastic knife for icing and cutting, a few plastic forks and paper plates.

Thank you, Dawn. I think this will be today's project.

And I just read that too--Maybe we found the same magazine or something? I had deja vu when I read about the napkins, icing, forks, plates, balloons, etc. LOL. It's a great idea for the troops, or for anyone far away, that's for sure.

Thanks again. I'll update this thread once the cake amounts to something (or not).

While on the subject of soldiers, here is a great way to support our troops. You can sign up to adopt a soldier or a family and send care packages!

http://HomefrontHugs.com

I am not affiliated with this organization but have signed on to sponsor a soldier!

there is also another site that I participate on:

www.anysoldier.com

It's a great (and easy) thing to do.

We're leading parallel lives today, Dawn. I just recommended AnySoldier.com on a couple of my other favorite websites yesterday. [cue Twilight Zone music....]

The bowl looks like stainless steel. Now you can bake in stainless steel, but it is not a good conductor of heat, which is why your stainless steel pots and pans always should have a core of other metals on the bottom, generally copper and some other metal. The more plys the better. See if your stainless steel pots are not triple ply well there is a tendency for them to warp easily. Without the heating core at the bottom of the pans, there is a tendency for uneven heat distribution and burning and sticking. So back to using the stainless bowl, yes you can bake in it , but you would be better off with a different material. Which explains why only very rarely do you find a cake pan made from stainless and when you do, they advertise that it will stay looking new for years etc, but they never talk about how it will cook. Unevenly, for sure. Which is why aluminum is generally the most common material used.
Hugs Squirrelly Cakes

A-haaaaa! I see. Thank you, Squirelly. Maybe I should just make a cake in a regular pan today and trim it to the size I want. I don't have enough ingredients on-hand to make a bigger cake today. Thanks for your help.

Very good info. So, I'm assuming cookie tins and coffee cans are made from aluminum? I honestly don't know. So it would be OK to bake in these withour added precaution?

Okay, what about this bowl instead? It's one of my mom's Pfaltzgraff pottery bowls. She said she's heard that you can bake in these, but has never tried it.



Thanks again.

Thanks again, Squirrelly. I've been of the Pfaltzgraff website and some of their dishes in this pattern ("Yorketown") are listed as bakeware, but they don't specify really. It seems the ones labeled bakeware just come with lids, so that's not a helpful disntinction. I have other pans, but not the size I want except for this and that metal bowl. I may just have to experiment and risk wasting ingredients if it doesn't make right--But I hate to do that when it's Mom's ingredients.

We'll see. Thanks again.

I was interested in the tin idea for shipping to North Carolina- where most of my family is. But I guess I could bake it in a similar sized cake pan and just transfer it.

I'd never thought of baking in a veggie can for perfectly round slices... now that's a great tip! ... and I'm a caterer and never ever came across that....

Live and learn

My $.03 worth here...do you have any Pyrex mixing bowls? I have used the smallest one for ummm, little round mounds, and they baked perfectly!

Thanks, jscakes, but no, I don't have any Pyrex here. I decided to try it in the metal bowl after all, despite the warnings that it would probably bake unevenly. "Stubborn!!" as my dad would cry out. It's baking right now, has about 20 minutes to go. I'll let you know how it turns out. Thanks again!

'Good advice, heracastle.

Here's the cake so far. It just came out of the oven.



It was puffier/domed on top, but I smooshed it down--My equivalent of leveling. There's obviously a crack on the top, but otherwise, it seems done and okay. We'll know when we taste it, I guess.

Stay tuned for the next installment of "Can-I-Bake-a-Cake-in-This-Bowl?-No?-Well-Let-Me-Try-It-Anyway...."

Would it be too hard for a fondant beginner to try to cover this cake with fondant? I've only covered one other cake with it. It's small, which might make it easier.

The fondant covered it nicely, and the cake tastes fine. (Whew!) I'll post a photo--or 12, LOL (kidding!)--shortly. I'm so thrilled that the fondant worked well this time; I just covered a cake with fondant for the first time on Valentine's Day and it was so messy. I'm *so* happy with the way tonight's cake turned out. Thank you all again for your help.

Very cool! Thanks for sharing. I'm the same way you seem to be....

"Don't tell me it can't be done!!"

Ta-da! It's not perfect, but by gosh, it covered much more nicely than the first time I tried it.



And yesssssss, Dawn, I think it would be a hoot to be in the kitchen with you. ("It can't be DONE, huh?" --- "Yeah!"---"YEAH?!??? Watch THIS!" --- "YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" [diving into flour headfirst]

Well it certainly looks good, good for you!
Just wanted to be clear, I knew it could be done, I was just getting across that it isn't the best metal for cooking in and you have to play more with cooking times and making sure that it cooks in the centre without over cooking the outer edges. You can cook in just about anything that is oven safe with varying degrees of perfection. Sort of like the difference between cooking a cake in a better cake pan or in a cheaper pan, eventually both cakes will cook, it is just that the one that is a better grade and weight of aluminum will cook better than the cheaper lighter weight aluminum.
Sorry, I thought I was clearer on that.
Hugs Squirrelly Cakes

That did turn out really nice! Weren't you just a teeny bit nervous about it coming out of the bowl? :O

Thank you, Squirrelly and jscakes.

Squirrelly, I understand better now. When I read "bake unevenly," I was expecting the cake to be soupy in some spots and burnt in others. While that wasn't the case, it *did* take a long time to bake! So, anyway, I understand better now. If I ever make a cake this size for someone else, I'll make sure to have a "real" baking pan first, but just as an experiment, I'm happy with the bowl's results.


And jscakes, I greased both the bottom *and* sides of the bowl--my mom wondered if it would rise at all, given that--, and it came out really easily. But yeah, she would not have been pleased had I destroyed her mixing bowl.

wow, being a military wife for over 16 years, it sure makes me happy to see people back in the states supporting our soldiers!!...especially when my husband is one of them!

Do you think a cake would ship better over there is we sealed it first like in one of those food savers???

I'm very interested i the program you are using. I really like anysoldier.com and will continue to support them. However, we're not allowed to send home bakes goodies. I totally get why (terrorism comes from the strangest places) But I'd still love to bake some cookies and ship them over.