Only Enough To Act As A Preservative: Bacardi Rum Cake

Yesterday, I shared my love of the 9 x 13-inch pan. Growing up, all cakes were made in this venerable dish. My sister's must-have birthday cake (Lemon Jell-O Cake, which I'll post when I do the Fishwives cookbook) was always the friendly rectangle. It was only much later in life that I read the full recipe and realized that the cake was supposed to be baked in a Bundt pan. Today's recipe from The Fruit of the Spirit: 100th Anniversary of Bittinger Lutheran Parish says to use a Bundt, too -- but out of cakely familial loyalty, I'd be tempted to use the tried and true 9 x 13.

Bacardi Rum Cake
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.

Pudding: 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.

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.

Diane's Ultimate Thumbprints; a.k.a. Sonja Henie Cookies

When it comes to cookies, donuts, or sponge cake, I think the best can only be made better by adding jelly. Oh, for a jelly roll! Or a donut gushing with raspberry jam. Or, come Christmas time, a thumbprint cookie. They're delicious to eat, and fun to make (I mean, come on, any recipe that involves smooshing stuff is fun). This recipe Christmas 101 is a riff on the classic thumbprint:

Diane's Ultimate Thumbprints

Makes about 5 dozen cookies

Make Ahead: The cookies can be prepared up to 1 week ahead, stored in an airtight container at room temperature.

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup packed light or dark brown sugar
2 large eggs, separated
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups (6 ounces) walnuts
1/4 cup granulated sugar
Pinch of salt
2/3 cup fruit preserves, such as raspberry or apricot (see Note)

1. Position the racks in the top and bottom thirds of the oven and preheat to 350°F.

2. In a large bowl, using a hand-held electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat the butter until creamy, about 1 minute. Add the brown sugar and beat until light in color and texture, about 2 minutes. Beat in the egg yolks, then the vanilla. Using a wooden spoon, gradually mix in the flour to make a soft dough. Using a scant tablespoon for each, roll the dough into 1-inch balls. Place the balls on a baking sheet and let stand in a cool place (near an open window in cold weather or in the refrigerator) until slightly chilled and firmed, about 10 minutes. (Don't skip this step -- the dough must be slightly chilled to make the holes in the dough that hold the preserve filling.)

3. In a food processor, pulse the walnuts and the granulated sugar until the walnuts are finely chopped. Set aside.

4. In a small bowl, beat the egg whites with the pinch of salt until foamy. Pour about one-third of the chopped walnut mixture into a shallow bowl. Dip each ball of dough in the egg whites, roll in the walnut mixture to coat, and place 1 inch apart on nonstick cookie sheets. Holding a ball of dough on the sheet with one hand, use the tip of your little finger of the other hand to press a 1/4-inch wide hole into the center, about 1/4 inch deep. (If you have long fingernails, use the inverted tip of a 1/4 inch-wide wooden spoon handle or a dowel.) If the ball cracks, just press the crack together to smooth. Repeat with the other balls of dough, gradually adding more of the walnut mixture to the shallow bowl as needed. (It is important to use the walnut mixture in batches, as it will collect moisture from the egg whites, and if used all at once, it will get so wet it won't adhere properly. You will probably have leftover chopped walnuts, but that's better than running out of them.)

5. Bake until the cookies feel set but not completely baked, about 10 minutes. Meanwhile, place the preserves in a small, self-sealing plastic bag and squeeze the preserves into one corner of the bag. Using scissors, snip off the corner of the bag to make an opening about 1/4 inch wide. When the cookies are set, remove them from the oven. Use the bag to pipe the preserves into the hole in each cookie. Return the cookies to the oven, switching the positions of the cookies from top to bottom and from front to back. Bake until the cookies are lightly browned, 5 to 8 more minutes. Cool on the baking sheets for 2 minutes. Transfer to wire cooling racks to cool completely. (The cookies can be prepared up to 1 week ahead, stored in an airtight container at room temperature.)

Note: Be sure to use preserves for the filling; jellies and jams are too thin and will melt into the cookies. If your preserves are especially chunky, chop up the fruit pieces in a bowl with a knife before using to avoid clogging the hole in the bag as you fill the cookies.

Do not be afraid of the long recipe, of all the detailed steps. These are cookies, the most forgiving of the baked goods! Chill your dough when you're told to, and the rest will all work out. And even if your fruity goodness does melt into your delicate dough... it's a cookie. It's going to taste great.

The author notes that the original recipe card for these calls them "Sonja Henies," but he doesn't think that name resonated with modern cookie makers or eaters. Sonja Henie was an Olympic gold medalist AND a Hollywood box-office smash. ....okay, she was also considered a Quisling... a Nazi collaborator. Certainly, she was friendly with Hitler. It does take the gleam off her stardom, that. It's easy to forget when she's playing the earnest, lovable, sweetly conniving skater in "Iceland" or "Sun Valley Serenade"... So, fine, we can call them Diane's Ultimate Thumbprints; they'll still taste good, and look delightful on your cookie tray.

One last Henie-related note: she had a romance with Van Johnson, who passed away today at the age of 92. I feel a memorial film festival coming on.

Filbert Brittle

Though plates of fudge and cookies make me go back in my mind to my mom's family home, there are a few things that make me leap, mentally, to Dad's mom's house. Ribbon candy. Scotch and soda. Dill pickles. Brittle. And nuts.

Grandma always had a wooden bowl filled with nuts in their shells, sitting out on the coffee table. There were nut picks and a nut cracker (which looks surprisingly like what I've seen folks out here use for cracking crab). We would crack and eat nuts all visit long. My favorites were always the filberts.

Mmmm, filberts. For, lo, it was Oregon, and it was the 70s, and they were filberts. The rest of the world might call 'em "hazelnuts," but we knew better. Filbert orchards everywhere, and tasty, tasty filberts, too.

Imagine my surprise when I went to an Oregon wine tasting here in DC, and met the heads of the Oregon HAZELNUT Growers Association. They begged me to not call them filberts anymore. Seems that properly named filberts don't command the same price on the international marked as identical-except-in-name hazelnuts. A bit of me died that night.

Back to Grandma, and memories. The Farm Journal's Homemade Candy has a recipe that combines two of the tastes that make me think of Grandma G.

Unsurpassable Filbert Brittle

Filberts grow in Oregon and candy makers there believe that confections featuring them can't be surpassed. They have a right to be proud of this brittle. If you can't find filberts in your markets, you can use either raw Spanish peanuts or salted peanuts as a substitute in the recipe for Filbert Brittle.

As with all brittle recipes, the trick is to prevent scorching and the formation of sugar crystals during the cooking. This recipe shows the way a home economics teacher controls these problems. All her friends recognize her as an expert candy maker.

She likes to pour the cooked brittle onto a warm marble slab, brushed with mineral oil, but you can use heavy duty foil, well oiled or buttered. To warm the marble, she lays her electric pad on it and turns on the electricity -- an original idea.

Filbert Brittle

A holiday treat in the Northwest -- it's worth adoption across country

4 c. whole or halved filberts
3 c. sugar
1 14/ c. light corn syrup
1 c. boiling water
2 tblsp. butter
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. vanilla

Remove any excess or loose fibers from filberts, but do not remove skins.

Combine sugar, corn syrup, and boiling water in 3-qt. heavy saucepan. Stir until sugar is dissolved, then cover and place over medium heat until syrup boils. Remove lid; insert candy termometer and cook at medium boil to the soft ball stage (240°).

Add filberts all at once. Do not stir until mixture again boils (it might start a crystal). Then stir with a wooden spoon to keep nuts from scorching, using care not to touch sides of pan above surface of syrup, for the friction of spoon may cause crystals to fall into syrup and cause a coarse-grain candy.

Cook to the hard crack stage (310°), or even beyond it to 320°, at which stage sugar caramelizes and turns a dark golden color. Add butter; remove from heat at once. Then add salt, soda and vanilla, stirring in well.

Pour onto warm marble slab, brushed with mineral oil or butter, or onto buttered heavy duty foil. Pour brittle so it spreads out as thinly as possible. Work a buttered or oiled spatula under one side of brittle and turn it over. Pull the brittle as thin as possible. (A heatproof mit is helpful in turning and pulling brittle.)

Let cool; then break in pieces of eating size. Store in airtight containers. Place in freezer, refrigerator or other cold place. Makes 3 pounds.

Do take it to the 320°F point, please, and get the darker, yummier, caramelized sugar. It's so worth it.

I can taste it now. The butter. The burnt sugar. The crisp nuts. How, on a humid day (and, hello, it was Oregon...rainy rainy humid), it would be a bit softer, a bit grainier. Still tasty as all get out.