We met a woman who makes AMAZING rum cakes down here in Florida. She only makes them for friends on special occasions; she doesn't sell them at farmers markets or anything like that. She inspired me to make one myself, even if it wasn't fully from scratch. I found this recipe on AllRecipes.com, and it sounded like something I could do.
Ingredients
Cake:
- 1 cup chopped walnuts
- 1 (15.25 ounce) package yellow cake mix
- 4 large eggs
- ½ cup dark rum
- ½ cup water
- ½ cup vegetable oil
- 1 (3.5 ounce) package instant vanilla pudding mix
Glaze:
- ½ cup butter
- ½ cup white sugar
- ⅛ cup water
- ¼ cup rum
Directions
To make the cake:
- Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).
- Grease and flour a 10-inch Bundt or tube pan.
- Sprinkle walnuts over the bottom of the prepared pan; set aside.
- Mix cake mix, eggs, dark rum, water, oil, and vanilla pudding mix together in a large bowl until well combined. Pour batter over walnuts in the pan.
- Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 1 hour.
- Cool, then invert cake onto a serving plate. Gently prick holes into the top and sides of cake with a toothpick or skewer.
To make the glaze:
- Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Stir sugar and water into melted butter; bring to a boil.
- Cook, stirring constantly, for 5 minutes. Remove glaze from heat; stir in rum.
- Drizzle warm glaze over top and sides of cake.
I actually made this cake to bring to a friend's house for book club. While she's the only one who is vegan, she does host the gathering at her place every time, so I feel it's only right to bring something she can eat. There are many different substitutes for eggs in baking: applesauce, bananas, even seltzer water. Since this recipe called for four eggs, I thought it would be best to use a mixture of all those options instead of leaning in for just one of them (otherwise the cake would have been REALLY apple-y or banana-y!). So I used a quarter-cup of mashed banana, a quarter-cup of apple sauce, and a half-cup of seltzer water.
I didn't bother with the nuts, since some people are allergic or simply don't like nuts in desserts. I knew this wouldn't really impact the recipe anyway. But what I did forget was the vanilla pudding packet: I didn't have any! I read online that a pudding substitute can be a cornstarch slurry made with water and added flavoring. So I did that with vanilla extract. That was the last ingredient I added to the mixture, and I noted how wet the batter was. But I did replace two of the eggs with seltzer water, so I don't think the slurry was the culprit.
And I wasn't sure what to use instead of butter for the glaze. The idea of a rum cake is that the glaze soaks into the cake to deepen the rum flavor. But instead, I made a rum-flavored icing (as opposed to a glaze) with just powdered sugar and Pusser's. I've certainly drizzled icing over bundt cakes before, so this change wasn't totally out of left field. But it was STRONG. If you took just a spoonful of icing, you almost felt like you were taking a shot!
Because of all these changes, I feel like I definitely have to try making the original recipe. But I will say the vegan version was delicious! It was so moist, and because there was only a little bit of icing on each piece, the rum effect wasn't too strong. My friends LOVED the cake, and they might have even liked the icing more! We joked that I have to bring the cake to every book club meeting, as well as little cups of icing for each person so they can just eat it on its own. So this recipe is a real WINNER!
UPDATE: I did make the regular version of the recipe (still skipping the nuts), and I actually think the vegan version is better! Yes, the true recipe rose much higher in the oven and is lighter/fluffier. But it's not as moist or flavorful. And the glaze is SO messy. A full stick of butter is way too much. Only some of it goes in the cake; the rest of it spilled everywhere. I would NOT recommend making the glaze, but instead doing the icing like I did the first time.
