Chocolate Cherry Rum Cake

As I continue playing with various rum cake recipes, I find variation after variation each time I look at ingredients in my pantry. I like to keep an eclectic mix of items around to foster my creativity.

The chocolate cherry mix is nothing new, but the rum soak ads a nice kick each time one comes across a chewy cherry in the cake.

The recipe:

 

Cake:

1 box chocolate cake mix

1 box (4 serving) vanilla instant pudding

½ cup water

½ cup rum

½ cup oil (I use olive)

4 eggs

1 cup dried tart cherries soaked in rum

 

Glaze

¼ cup butter

½ cup sugar

¼ cup water

¼ cup rum

1 tsp almond extract

1 tsp chocolate extract

 

Preheat oven to 325°.  Pour the rum off the soaked cherries, reserve to use in the cake and in the glaze (if there is enough). In a large bowl, combine cake mix, pudding mix, water, oil, eggs, rum, and soaked cherries. Beat until combined. Grease and flour a bundt pan. Spread nuts around the bottom then pour in the batter. Bake for 50-60 minutes.

 

When the cake comes out of the oven, leave in pan. Boil butter, sugar, water, and allspice glaze ingredients for 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and stir in rum, almond extract, and chocolate extract.

 

With the cake still in the pan, poke holes in the cake – I use a chopstick. Pour hot glaze over the cake. Allow the glaze to soak into the cake before turning it out onto a plate (about 5 minutes).

 

Pineapple Upside Down Rum Cake

A couple months ago I got on a kick of making cakes with spiced rum after my roommate brought that home instead of regular rum.  While the standard recipes were good, I knew I could continue to improve the cake with variations. I wanted to make a pina-colada cake, but since my roommate is allergic to coconut, I opted to try the pineapple upside down version and pulled out the maraschino cherries.

To date it is my favorite of the multiple variations.

 

Cake:

1 box French vanilla cake mix

1 box (4 serving) vanilla instant pudding

½ cup liquid drained off pineapple (no sugar added preferably)

½ cup spiced rum

½ cup oil (I use olive)

4 eggs

Pineapple chunks or rounds

Maraschino cherries

 

Glaze

¼ cup butter

½ cup sugar

¼ cup water

¼ cup spiced rum

 

 

Preheat oven to 325°. In a large bowl, combine cake mix, pudding mix, water, oil, eggs, rum, and allspice. Beat until combined. Grease and flour a Bundt pan. Spread pineapple and maraschino cherries around the bottom then pour in the batter. Bake for 50-60 minutes.

When the cake comes out of the oven, leave in pan. Boil butter, sugar, and drained pineapple juice, glaze ingredients for 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and stir in spiced rum.

With the cake still in the pan, poke holes in the cake – I use a chopstick. Pour hot glaze over the cake. Allow the glaze to soak into the cake before turning it out onto a plate (about 5 minutes).

 

Spiced Rum Cake

In the midst of a cooking frenzy, I asked my roommate to run to the liquor store to pick up some rum for a particular drink I was going to make. He called from the store and asked what kind; I naively replied, “any.”

He came home with spiced rum. Not at all anything I could use in the planned drink. So I had to come up with something to use that rum –I am too cheap to waste things. It had been a while since I made a cake, so I decided to investigate recipes for a spiced rum cake. The internet and my cookbooks offered myriad suggestions, but I opted for something simple and quick.

 Version one was good, but I knew I could improve on it (it left off the amount of spiced rum to put in the glaze). The texture and flavor of the cake lacked what I expect from a cake, so I tried again with my own adjustments. Version two came out much better.

 

The recipe is quite simple:

Cake:

1 box white cake mix

1 box (4 serving) vanilla instant pudding

½ cup water

½ cup spiced rum

½ cup oil (I use olive)

4 eggs

1 tsp ground allspice

½ cup chopped or slivered nuts

 

Glaze

¼ cup butter

½ cup sugar

¼ cup water

¼ cup spiced rum

dash allspice

 

Preheat oven to 325°. In a large bowl, combine cake mix, pudding mix, water, oil, eggs, rum, and allspice. Beat until combined. Grease and flour a bundt pan. Spread nuts around the bottom then pour in the batter. Bake for 50-60 minutes.

 

When the cake comes out of the oven, leave in pan. Boil butter, sugar, water, and allspice glaze ingredients for 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and stir in spiced rum.

 

With the cake still in the pan, poke holes in the cake – I use a chopstick. Pour hot glaze over the cake. Allow the glaze to soak into the cake before turning it out onto a plate (about 5 minutes).