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? 

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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.

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Chowder +Giveaway by Maya Corrigan

POTLUCK MONDAY: CHOWDER 

We started Potluck Monday as a day for the unexpected: to revisit an old recipe, welcome a surprise guest, or explore a food topic. Though we planned to take turns at the potluck, the scheduling became complicated and I volunteered to take over Potluck Monday. It will be a day focused on food and cooking without a new recipe, but often with links to related recipes already on the blog. Today’s topic is chowder. Leave a comment about chowder to enter a drawing for Scam Chowder, my 2nd Five-Ingredient Mystery.

Chowder originated as a potluck meal. When men from the fishing villages along the Atlantic coast of France returned home with their catch, the community celebrated by preparing a thick soup or stew with ingredients from each family. Some contributed fish, others vegetables or seasonings. Whatever they had, they threw into the pot. Later, as people from the fishing villages relocated to Canada, they brought their culinary traditions with them. Eventually, the French word for the large pot or cauldron (chaudière) used to make the villagers' soup morphed into the English word chowder. This way of cooking fish migrated down to New England and farther south along the Atlantic coast and eventually across the country, with variations developing in each region.

Chowder even entered into literature, with a chapter in Herman Melville's Moby Dick devoted to it. Melville character, Ishmael, describes the clam chowder of 19th century New England: “It was made of small juicy clams, scarcely bigger than hazel nuts, mixed with pounded ship biscuit, and salted pork cut up into little flakes; the whole enriched with butter, and plentifully seasoned with pepper and salt.”

Today clam chowder comes in several varieties: white or New England chowder, made with milk or cream; red or Manhattan chowder, made with tomatoes; and the light broth-based chowder found in Rhode Island, around parts of the Chesapeake Bay, and Cape Hatteras. 

A recipe for the Chesapeake version of light chowder appears in Scam Chowder. The cover illustrates the five ingredients that go into this type of chowder. In the book the passing of two different types of chowder around the table serves as a clue to the murderer’s identity.

Chowders aren’t just for fish. Hearty soups made with chicken or vegetables are also known as chowders. Here’s a selection of chowder recipes that have appeared on Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen. 

• Lucy Burdette's Corn, Potato, and Sausage Chowder
• Sheila Connolly's Fish Chowder
• Liz Zelvin's Clam Chowder
• Daryl Wood Gerber's Summer Squash Chowder
• Lucy Burdette's Chicken and Corn Chowder

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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 her website to sign up for her newsletter. One subscriber wins a book each time a newsletter goes out. 
• Check out the easy recipes, mystery history and trivia, and a free culinary mystery story on the website.

ABOUT SCAM CHOWDER: Five-Ingredient Mystery #2

When a con man preying on retirees dies after eating Granddad’s clam chowder, Val must prove her grandfather innocent of murder.

Val loves the historic town where she lives with her grandfather, the Codger Cook. Running the fitness club’s Cool Down Café—and salvaging the five-ingredient dishes Granddad messes up—keeps her busy. When a dinner guest, a scammer who preys on retirees, goes face down in the chowder, Granddad's in the soup. As the police gather the ingredients for a murder conviction against him, he and Val dredge up secrets that could save him or get them both killed. ​

“Granddad is a hoot and his jobs as a food reviewer and part-time detective provide endless possibilities for fun and murder . . . Charming.” —Kirkus Review

"Your book highlighted the problem of fraud against seniors...an excellent mystery coupled with a great public service announcement!" — A Reader Review of Scam Chowder

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To enter a drawing for a copy of Scam Chowder, leave a comment about chowder by Wednesday, June 9. I can mail the paperback only to a U.S. address. Outside the U.S., the winner will receive cozy mystery swag or an e-book. 

Do you like chowder? If so, what's your favorite kind? 

Maya Corrigan's Scam Chowder and Olive Spread #recipe #giveaway

Today Mystery Lovers Kitchen welcomes guest Maya Corrigan. The second book in her Five-Ingredient Mystery series, Scam Chowder, came out on June 30th.

MAYA CORRIGAN: Val Deniston, the sleuth in the series, quit her New York job as a cookbook publicist and moved in with her demanding grandfather. While running a café in a historic Chesapeake Bay town, she tests recipes for her long-planned cookbook . . . and solves murders. In By Cook or by Crook (2014), her grandfather keeps the reason for his sudden interest in cooking a secret from Val. By paring down her recipes to five ingredients and passing them off as his own, he’s acquiring a reputation as the town’s food guru, the Codger Cook. 

In the second book of the series, Scam Chowder, Granddad throws a dinner party. He conceals from Val the real reason for the party—to expose one of his guests as a financial scammer targeting retirees. Val’s job is to prepare the meal and then disappear so Granddad can take all the credit for it. Though he complains that one of the appetizers she makes is ugly, it’s a hit with his guests (recipe below). A hit of another sort takes place when the next course is on the table, and the suspected scammer goes facedown in the chowder. With Granddad the prime suspect in the con artist’s murder, Val and her grandfather must work together to find out who poisoned the scammer’s chowder. 

Each book in the series includes Granddad’s five-ingredient recipes. The following spread is a yummy appetizer, similar to tapenade. The addition of raisins and walnuts makes it less salty than tapenade. As Val’s grandfather says, it’s not a pretty appetizer, but chopped parsley on top makes it more colorful and appealing.

Olive-Raisin-Walnut Spread

Serves 8 as an appetizer.

½ cup pitted Kalamata olives, drained
¼ cup chopped walnuts
½ cup raisins
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar
Optional: parsley to sprinkle on top
Combine all the ingredients in a food processor. Chop until the mix holds together enough that it can be spread. Sprinkle chopped parsley on top for color. Serve with pita chips or bread. The spread complements hummus and even works well as a sandwich spread when mixed with hummus. 


Maya Corrigan writes the Five-Ingredient Mysteries set on Maryland’s Eastern Shore: By Cook or by Crook (2014) and Scam Chowder (2015). She won the 2013 Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in unpublished Mystery/Suspense and the 2015 New England Reader’s Award for Mystery. When not reading and writing, she enjoys theater, tennis, trivia, cooking, and crosswords. Her website features book news, recipes, trivia, and quizzes about mysteries.

GIVEAWAY!
To enter a giveaway for a signed copy of Scam Chowder, leave a comment with an email address.

Visit Maya at her website or on Facebook
Sign up for her newsletter here.