Alternative for a Heating Rod or a Flower Nail for baking deep cake

Supplies:

metal whisk

Tools:

wire cutters

Step 1: Take your metal whisk and cut the rounded top off of your whisk. Leave the top of the whisk handle attached as this will make removing it much easier later. Wash your whisk after cutting it.

Step 2: Bend out the metal rods till it is shaped like an umbrella.

 

Step 3: Insert the rods into the cake, making sure that one rod goes into the center of the cake.

Step 4: Bake with the lower temp and longer time needed for your cake. I had to remove a wire rake for it to fit in the oven.

Step 5: When the cake is done pull out the rods with a pot holder, it will be hot, and let the cake cool.

 

Baked all the way through. I still don't know the right frosting technique yet. I tried royal icing at flood consistency, white chocolate ganache, and white chocolate glaze, all of them failed badly.

My husband got this really neat cake mold in the shape of a dragon curled around its eggs. It is really detailed and quit deep. I have tried baking this cake many times in the years we have had the mold and the middle always sinks and doesn’t bake all the way through. I have baked it a lot longer, sometimes it bakes all the way through but then its dry, and who likes dry cake. Sometimes the outside even tasted slightly burnt and the middle is still mushy.  It has been really frustrating.

My Sweetie asked me to try to make the dragon cake again for Father’s Day. I said I would try and I was determined for this time to be different. I started researching online to see is someone had the answer to this problem.  I finally found a professional baker Chef Allen who had a YouTube channel called Global Sugar Art  the video is called Baking Cake in Deep Pans | Two Minute Tips & Tricks | Global Sugar Art. Chef Allen said to use a heating rod in the middle, drop the temperature, and bake it for a longer time.

Strike one; no local stores had heating rods. I found someone online who said you could use a flower nail like a heat rod. I was excited; I could use this work around. Strike two; there were no local stores that had any flower nails. They didn’t even sell them. That left ordering it online as my only option and I didn’t have time for it to get here in time for Father’s Day. I talked with my husband and we had a number of ideas we could try as alternatives.

Later that day my husband came home with an amazing solution, a whisk. We cut the top rounded part off and used it like a bunch of small heat rods. The whisk is already food safe, which was a problem with the alternative ideas we came up with.  A whisk is cheap and easy to get at the dollar tree, grocery store, or department store.

It took 1 hour and 22 minutes at 325 degrees F. The cake was baked all the way through without being dry, burnt or mushy in the middle. Thank you Chef Allen for teaching me how to bake a deep cake and thanks my Sweetie for the solution. So if you are in a pinch and can’t get a heat rod or don’t have time to order a heat rod or flower nails this hack will do the trick.