Applesauce Snack Cake and Silicone Bakeware - do they mix?

I look around on eBay for cool kitchen items sometimes and saw this neat bundt loaf pan that I hadn't seen before.  I lost the bid on that one (sniff) and kept looking for one like it.

I also check out thrift stores for good deals on kitchen stuff.  Yesterday I wandered through my local thrift store and noticed this for $2.50:

That's exactly the shape and size I was thinking about, but I've never bought any silicone bakeware before and was a little unsure about it.  The couple bucks it cost was worth a shot to me, though.

I was so excited about it I decided to make a cake last night.  My son and I are the only ones home at this moment (hubby is out of town for a few days), and he generally isn't a chocolate cake fan - he tends to like desserts that are more fruity.  So, I chose an applesauce snack cake from Americas Test Kitchen Family Baking Book, which I like to call "ATK Blue"

I was going to take more pictures, but I was having a little technical difficulty with my camera.

This recipe called for a couple of ounces of dried apples to be chopped to smallish pieces and then you simmer those in a cup of apple cider for about 15 minutes and let them cool.  You also need to melt a stick of butter and let that cool.  An egg and a cup of applesauce need to come to room temperature.  So this recipe needs a wee bit of planning ahead - it doesn't just 'throw' together'.  Happily, I had the time to do this recipe right, as it was deLICious!!

I was very happy with how the tufted design showed up and the cake released easily (with no butter or PAM spray or anything at all).  I was also very happy with the wire frame that came with this as it made it pretty easy to handle.

This cake turned out a bit 'short' but only because the recipe only yielded so much batter - it was designed for an 8x8 square pan, which they wanted you to create a foil sling for and then grease the sling.  The pan could have taken 9 or maybe 10 cups of batter.  I will definitely use this pan again for a larger cake recipe soon.  We have an office party next week...maybe I'll make a chocolate pound cake or something...




~ks