Saturday, February 22, 2014

Rum Cake Recipe Experiment. Part 1

Ok. So I looooove rum cake. Like a lot. I've eaten it in the Bahama's, ordered it in from Jamaica and jumped for joy when a local bbq place had a secret recipe and I could just go drive out and get a slice. However woe is me that place has closed and I am tired of spending money on shipping cake to me. So here we go. Round one.


Rum Cake
Ingredient
for the cake:
1/2 cups walnuts, crushed (optional)
1 1/2 cups granulated white sugar
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, softened
3 tablespoons + 1/2 cup canola oil, separated (or not. Honestly worked fine for me either way. My Kitchen Aid is a beast)
1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup cornstarch OR ½ cup flour (I prefer the cornstarch. I could taste the extra flour when I used it) 4 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup vanilla instant pudding mix (JELLO is my choice)

3/4 cup whole milk
4 large eggs
3/4 cup dark rum (Appleton Estate Jamaican Rum)
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract (Don’t use imitation if you can help it. This is a recipe where you can taste the difference.)
for the rum syrup:
1 stick butter (1/2 cup)
1/2 cup water
3/4 cup granulated white sugar
1 teaspoon Kosher salt
1/2 cup dark rum (Same as above or you can mix and match)


Special Equipment: One 10-15 cup Bundt pan

Directions:
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour bundt pan. Set aside.

In the base of a mixer, cream the 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar and the 1/2 cup butter. Add the 3 tablespoons oil, flour, cornstarch, baking powder until evenly distributed. (should look a bit like crumbs) Mix in the pudding mix add walnuts.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, rum, vanilla extract, and remaining vegetable oil. Add to the dry mixture and mix well until combined. The batter will be smooth, thin, and pour easily. Scrape your bowl often.

Pour into the prepared bundt pan and bake for an hour, or until a tester inserted in the cake comes up clean. (1 hour and 5 minutes in my oven)

Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then invert onto a rack. Let cool for additional 20 minutes.

While the cake cools, prepare the rum syrup: In a saucepan combine the butter, water, granulated sugar. Cook over medium or low heat until the butter completely melts and the sugar dissolves add rum. Let reduce slightly.

Wash and dry the bundt pan, then place over the cool cake and invert the cake back into the pan. Pour the hot rum syrup all over the cake and let soak for 8 hours (overnight). <-- This step didn't work for me at all. I think next time I'm going to soak it in a big bowl because it came out of the pan perfect when cooling but this morning it stuck and broke in half.

This cake also wasn't nutty enough for me and I think I'm going to add about 50% more rum syrup on my next go. Overall my hubby loves it but it's not quite what I had in mind. I also want to use Bacardi Rum next time. I've had a Bacardi rum cake and it was tasty. Plus like I said this is a good cake but just not what I was looking for.

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