Week 15: Rum Cake

I spent the weekend debating whether I felt like making & eating old-fashioned fudge cake or rum cake.  As you can see from the title, rum cake won.  Sorry, old-fashioned fudge cake & fudge cake lovers.  There's always next weekend.

I've used this recipe for years & love it.  The cake is always moist & extremely rummy.  Is that a word?  If not, it should be.

I made use of my new bundt pan that I previously tried out with my margarita cake.  But something didn't go quite right this time.  Here's how the margarita cake looked:

And here's how the rum cake looked (it pulled away from the sides of the pan & didn't come out with the same scalloped edges):

Also, (borrowing a joke from Chuck) the rum cake came out of the oven with a few pieces missing...

The glaze also came out a little funny this time around - runnier than I'm used to.  It seemed like more of it ended up on the cake plate than on the cake.

Regardless, I love this cake.  And Chuck's bandmates seemed to like it too.

Lessons learned and recipe thoughts:

1. I suspect there are two reasons the cake is misshapen: 1) I used 1/2 the amount of pudding mix it called for (because that's all I happened to have in the cupboard) and 2) the recipe is designed for a 12-cup pan & I used a 10-cup pan.

2. I might have to make this a few more times in the coming weeks to perfect this glaze.  You know, for the benefit of the people to whom I serve it.

3. I had intended to place whole pecans in the pan before pouring in the cake batter, but completely forgot.  So I might have to make this recipe again very soon.  You know, for the benefit of people who like pecans.

4. Make sure you remove your saucepan from the heat before adding rum.  Otherwise, you'll have a sputtering mess.

5. If you pour in all the rum into the glaze at once, you'll be surrounding by a cloud of rum.  That's not necessarily a bad thing...just be prepared.


Bacardi Rum Cake

1 c. chopped pecans or walnuts

1 (18 1/2 oz.) pkg. yellow cake mix
1 (3 3/4 oz.) pkg. instant vanilla pudding
4 eggs
1/2 c. cold water
1/2 c. Wesson oil
1/2 c. Bacardi dark rum (80 proof)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour 10 inch tube pan or 12 cup Bundt cake pan. Sprinkle nuts over bottom of pan. Mix all ingredients together and pour over nuts. Bake 1 hour. Cool. Invert on serving plate. Prick top. Drizzle smooth glaze evenly over top and sides. Allow cake to absorb glaze. Repeat until all glaze is used.

GLAZE:

1/4 lb. butter
1/4 c. water
1 c. granulated sugar
1/2 c. Bacardi dark rum

Melt butter in saucepan. Stir in water and sugar. Boil 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and stir in rum.