Golden rum cake

Today I celebrate The Caked Crusader’s 4^th birthday. It doesn’t feel that long ago that I received an ‘all you need to know about blogging’ masterclass from my friend Soo but I guess time flies when you’re having fun.

Now I’ll admit that I have one or two cookery books in my possession but that doesn’t mean I’ll turn away new ones! When Quirk books kindly offered a free copy of Krystina Castella’s “Booze Cakes” I was delighted; it was a book that had been on my radar for some time. Further, as luck would have it, I’d just purchased a new bundt tin (a Wilton Dimensions Cascade tin) and was desperate to try it out!

The golden rum cake recipe stood out to me as I have a passion for rum cake, borne of many lovely work trips to the Bahamas and memories of the wonderfully aromatic Tortuga Rum Cakes shop. With some shame, I can confess that, on one trip, I had to buy an extra suitcase while I was out there, in order to bring all my purchases back – a case full of rum cakes (nb. I am not exaggerating for comedic effect; I speak the cold hard truth). This recipe gets pretty close to those heavenly creations.

I have made a rum cake before (recipe can be found here) but it was more of a nutty rum cake. This one replicates the more yellow, pudding-y rum cakes and has rather more booze in it! You can see the rum saturation in this slice:

From memory, this is the first cake I’ve ever made where I think it needs to come with a “drink and drive” warning. Because the rum glaze contains rum where the alcohol isn’t cooked out, it does pack a punch. Bear it in mind if you’re partaking in this cake and have already had a beverage or two. Be safe out there, people!

I think you could cut back on the quantities in the glaze if you weren’t that into rum. Some of my eaters found it too strong...while others loved it. The cake definitely mellows with age and the punchy strength of the rum softens; the cake is huuuuuge but this doesn’t matter because a) it’s heavenly, and b) it keeps a week in an airtight container.

As the recipes in the book are American, they are only given in cups. I have converted them to metric but include the cups for anyone who prefers them.

I finish on a more serious note. My friend, Soo, the one I have to thank for getting me into blogging and introducing me to a whole new world is supporting a really important charity – the Canadian Parkinson’s Society. The charity funds research into Parkinson’s and I’m sure you’ll all agree that any findings will benefit sufferers the world over. You can read more about it and make donations via Soo’s site.

Just one last sweetener to add; Soo being Soo, she’s offering great gifts (awesome earrings that she’s made) for anyone donating over $10 (that’s about £6) and also entry into a prize draw for anyone who donates.

Ingredients

For the cake:

230g / 1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
400g / 2 cups caster sugar
4 eggs
375g / 3 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
250ml / 1 cup milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
180ml / ¾ cup golden rum – I used Mount Gay Golden rum (oh Tortuga – why don’t you export?)

For the glaze:

60g / 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
200g / 1 cup caster sugar
63ml / ¼ cup water
125ml / ½ cup golden rum

Method

Preheat the oven to 180˚C/fan oven 160˚C/350˚F/Gas mark 4

Grease a 9-10” bundt tin (that’s approx 23-25cm). As bundt tins have fine details and I wanted the cake to retain those, I used a cake release spray – it gets into the nooks and crannies of complicated moulds better.

Cream together the butter and sugar – dedicate a lot of time to this, until the batter turns pale and light textured – almost like whipped cream. I can sometimes spend 10 minutes or more on this stage.

Beat in the eggs one at a time; if it looks like the mix might curdle add some of the flour.

Combine the flour, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda in a bowl.

In a jug, combine the milk, vanilla and rum.

Beat about a third of the flour mix into the batter, followed by a third of the milk mix.

Repeat twice more until all the ingredients are combined.

Pour the batter into the prepared tin and bake for approximately 1 hour or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean. Check the cake after 50 minutes as mine only needed 55 minutes cooking time.

Leave to cool, still in the tin, on a wire rack.

Now make the glaze: melt the butter over a low heat.

Stir in the sugar and water and slowly bring to the boil.

Cook for 5 minutes, stirring all the time.

Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the rum.

Pour the glaze over the cake while it’s still in the tin – this forces the cake to absorb all the liquid. Pour gently and slowly as it’s possible that the cake might not absorb it all in one go and you might have to stop and give it time to recover!

Leave to cool completely (still in the tin) before de-tinning onto a plate and storing in an airtight tin.

Serve in generous slices – I don’t think it needs any accompaniment but whipped cream is an option!

Bask in the glory of the wonderful thing you have created.

Eat.