Rum Cake Revisited by Maya Corrigan

For many years my company dessert was rum cake. I think the original recipe appeared on the label of a Bacardi rum bottle. I can’t remember whether my mother or my mother-in-law was the first to try it. The three of us baked it regularly because it was so easy. The recipe, using yellow cake mix as its basis, always turned out well. But times change and so did the size of cake mix boxes. So today I’m sharing a rum cake recipe modified for the smaller size of today’s mixes.

Today's cake mix boxes contain approximately 3/4 of the amount that boxes did years ago. So in revising the recipe, I used three eggs instead of four. To decrease the pudding, I measured what was in the entire box and subtracted a quarter from it. Next time I'll use the whole box. The only result of using another tablespoon of pudding mix would probably be a slightly sweeter cake. Today's cake mix boxes contain approximately 3/4 the amount that boxes did years ago. So in revising the recipe, I used three eggs instead of four. To decrease the pudding, I measured what was in the entire box and subtracted a quarter from it. I left out less than a tablespoon of mix. Next time I'll just use all of it. The cake might be a smidge sweeter but otherwise the same.

The original recipe called for a rum glaze, which adds quite a bit of sweetness and increases the alcohol. These days I rarely add the glaze. Occasionally, I’ve iced the cake with cream cheese frosting for a birthday celebration. Without the glaze or the icing, it makes a fine not-too-sweet cake for tea or dessert.

Ingredients

1 yellow or vanilla cake mix, formerly 18.5 oz and now 15.25 oz
1 package of instant vanilla pudding, still 3.34 oz
3 eggs
1/2 cup cold water
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup dark rum

1 cup of chopped pecans or walnuts (optional)

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

Grease and flour a 10-12-inch tube or Bundt pan. If using nuts, spread them on the bottom. Set the pan aside.

Combine the cake mix, pudding mix, water, oil, and rum in a large mixing bowl. Beat the mixture on medium speed for 2 minutes and then pour it into pan.

Bake at 325 degrees for 55-60 minutes until golden brown and the cake springs back when touched.

Cool the cake on a rack for 10 minutes and invert it onto a serving platter. 

Rum Glaze 

If you want to glaze the cake, add it after the cake has cooled for 10 minutes and you've inverted it. 

Ingredients

4 Tablespoons butter
1/2 cup sugar
2 Tablespoons water
1/4 cup dark rum

Melt the butter in a small saucepan. Stir in the sugar and water. After the mixture boils, stir it constantly for 5 minutes. Then add the rum and stir again.

Prick the cake all over with a toothpick. Spoon or brush the glaze over the top and sides little by little. If the glaze pools at the bottom, spoon it over the cake again until the cake has absorbed all the glaze. 

Do you have a reliable dessert that you often make or do you prefer to try new recipes? 

📚

Back in Print! The first Five-Ingredient Mystery!

The paperback version of By Cook or by Crook has not been available for a while, but now there's a new printing. So if you want to start the series with the initial book, you can order it from your favorite bookstore. Large retailers list the second book, Scam Chowder, as unavailable in paper form. However, there are still printed copies available. Please e-mail me (maya.corrigan at gmail dot com) if you want the paperback and I'll direct you to an independent bookseller who has one. All the titles in the series, including those two, are available as ebooks. 

Maya Corrigan writes the Five-Ingredient Mysteries featuring café manger Val and her live-wire grandfather solving murders in a Chesapeake Bay town. Maya lives in a Virginia suburb of Washington, D.C. Before writing crime fiction, she taught American literature, writing, and detective fiction at Northern Virginia Community College and Georgetown University. When not reading and writing, she enjoys theater, travel, trivia, cooking, and crosswords.

Visit a mystery fan fest in the latest Five-Ingredient Mystery

Val and Granddad attend a mystery fan fest that features a bake-off between contestants playing the roles of cooks to fictional sleuths. As Nero Wolfe’s gourmet chef, Granddad competes against Sherlock Holmes's landlady Mrs. Hudson, played by Cynthia Sweet. Granddad blames her for ripping off the five-ingredient theme of his Codger Cook newspaper column to use in her own recipe column and cookbook. When she’s found dead in her hotel room with a whistling teakettle next to her, he and Val sort through the festival-goers to find the one with the biggest beef against Ms. Not-So-Sweet.

• Visit my website for easy recipes, mystery history and trivia, and a culinary mystery story. 
• Sign up for my newsletter. One subscriber wins a free book each time I send a newsletter.
• Follow me on Facebook.

📚