Rum Cake (From Scratch!)
My good friend, Liisa, was the one who got me hooked years ago on rum cake.
Liisa was the one roommate I ever had who loved cooking just as much as I did. And I must say that our kitchen back then and my life ever since have both been all the more delicious thanks to her. (Case in point: she was the one who introduced me to my favorite red enchilada sauce, which I have made approximately five thousand times since.) She cooked dinner almost every night and was a pro at using various spices and seasonings to make our simple budget meals taste tres gourmet. But one of my favorite things about Liisa was her insistence on baking her own birthday cake each year.
Actually, it’s probably more accurately called butter rum cake, since the key ingredient to its decadence would make Paula Dean proud.
Liisa would always pull out her beautiful bundt pan, coat it with sugar, and then bake up a rum-laced yellow cake to golden perfection. And then we would watch her poke holes all over the cake and pour an extra butter-rum sauce to fill in the gaps. And then once the cake was inverted onto a pretty pedestal, the remaining sauce would be drizzled on top as a glaze.
It was the perfect birthday indulgence, and I loved it so much that I adopted for many future birthdays of my own. And when I later found out that rum cake is traditionally considered a Christmas dessert, well, all the merrier. More rum cake for all!!
This Christmas, though, I decided to finally see if I could figure out a rum cake from scratch that would rival the traditional recipe, which is usually made with a boxed cake mix. I have to admit — this proved no easy task. I don’t know what processed magic they throw in boxed cake mixes, but especially with yellow cakes, those flippin’ boxes are hard to beat. But three rum cakes (and many happy Christmas parties) later, I think I found a scratch recipe that at least rivals the boxed mix version. It takes a little more time and effort, but if you’re trying to move away from processed food, it’s definitely worth the try.
