Bacardi Rum CakePudding: the great moisturizer of cake. I like the substitution hints here, as I bet they can be used for lots of other cake-doctoring recipes.
Linda Thomas
Cake:
1 c. chopped pecans or walnuts
1 pkg. yellow cake mix
1 sm. pkg. vanilla instant pudding
4 eggs
1/2 c. cold water
1/2 c. Wesson oil
1/2 c. Bacardi rum
Glaze:
1/4 lb. butter
1/4 c. water
1 c. white sugar
1/2 c. rum
Preheat oven to 325°. Grease and flour tube or bundt pan. Sprinkle nuts over bottom of pan. Mix all cake ingredients together over nuts. Pour batter over nuts. Bake 1 hour. Cool. Invert on serving plate. Prick top. Spoon or brush glaze evenly over top, allowing cake to absorb glaze. Glaze: Melt butter in saucepan. Stir in water and sugar. Boil 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Stir in rum. *If using cake mix with pudding already in the mix, omit instant pudding, use 3 eggs instead of 4, use 1/3 cup oil instead of 1/2 cup.
Some of you may not keep rum around the house. If you're one of those people, you might want to know how much, really, you need to buy. Well, a fifth of rum is 750 ml, which is about 25 ounces, or just over three cups. So, one regular-sized bottle of Bacardi is going to get you through this cake and two others (or this cake and several Cuba Libres). Should you go for a light rum, or a dark rum? I leave it to your personal tastes. If you don't think you have personal tastes when it comes to rum, then I suggest going for a light rum, so that your cake color is still light and lovely. You can up the amount of rum you use in the glaze (1/4 cup of rum brings more flavor to the cake than 1/4 cup of water, after all) if you want to have really rummy cake.
I remember my first rum cake (eating, not making). I was over at the Schrader's house, and Martha had made an apple rum cake. It was delicious, and I probably ate too much of it, especially considering that I was a kid. Remember: alcohol can cook out of dishes, and probably does cook out of the cake. However, it's NOT cooking out of the glaze. There's active, boozy rum here; do not serve to those who have medical, religious, or other reasons to avoid, well, Demon Rum.
Not to sound like a complete lush, but a rum cake (be it in a 9 x 13 or a Bundt) would be a great dish to take to your Memorial Day barbeque/picnic/potluck/what have you, if you're going to be around mostly-grown-ups. The pudding guarantees a moist cake, the Bacardi guarantees a delicious one.
Holy moly. Remember how earlier today I was telling you about my grandmother's sherry cake?
ReplyDeleteYeah. This is the cake. Except no nuts. And no rum. Sherry.
Damn.
In all seriousness, BEST THING EVER. My sister and I CANNOT get through a holiday without it.
JJ: That's great! So, I'd say take out the nuts, substitute chocolate cake mix (and chocolate pudding, if you want a death by chocolate effect), and (since you had burnination problems) use that 9x13 pan.
ReplyDeleteJJ: And aren't you glad you told me that I should do this recipe today, and not one of the others?
ReplyDeleteI am indeed! I think the 9x13 would be helpful (though sacrilege!), but I'm betting that my problem last time was bad rum-to-other-liquid ratio.
ReplyDelete