Double Rum Cake For A Merrier New Year

Hola people! Happy New Year 2016!!! 

So, that’s the 4th year since the Mayan Calendar ended and it seems like we are still kicking and going strong!

On the 31^st of December, when I was staring at the cup of rum I had taken from my neighbour and reflecting upon 2015, something interesting struck me – had we been celebrating our New Year in the wrong month all this while? Yes, January being the coldest month is definitely not the right time to keep up with resolutions and no wonder, I never kept mine; the calendar is to be blamed! 

So, do you have any New Year’s Eve tradition? Well, we don’t or do we?

For New Year’s Eve we are mostly at home; a drink, sumptuous home cooked dinner and a neat dessert, while watching some awesome movies on TV. We never sit up till 12 midnight and we wish each other Happy New Year the next day morning, while we do that one last quilt fight before waking up!

But one tradition I hold on to is to make the “last supper” of the year memorable. So the other day I was browsing through and stumbled upon this rum cake recipe. Well, I don’t booze, and he drinks only for company sake, when we have guests over, and that too just one, that’s it! That’s why we dropped the idea of an elegant wooden bar and settled with a cute little wrought iron one, which is almost always half filled with empty bottled :P So, anyway, I decided to go ahead with making the cake, but as usual, we did not have rum in stock and thus came our “good Samaritan” for help. 

Most of the rum cake recipes online calls for cake mix and I thought, we were long done with such junk. And this one seemed perfect; a rum cake from scratch and one that has not even one negative comment! So this recipe seemed like a kick-ass one, and since I have never tasted rum in my entire life, I thought, may be, this is the right time for it. And thus this most awesome “adult dessert” happened!

Mind you, the cake has a lot of booze in it; when he took the first bite, he smiled and said, “I can’t even imagine the extent to which Old Monk lovers would adore this cake. It is so bloody boozy!” Oh yeah, it sure is; we are talking about ¼ cup rum in the cake and another ¼ cup in the syrup. But again, if a non-drinker like me can relish this cake and easily gobble up 3-4 slices, I think, anyone would love it.

So, take out your best bundt pan and make this epic rum cake! 

I halved the original recipe and still ended up with two cakes; one of the normal size and another smaller one. 

Double Rum Cake 

YOU NEED:

For the Cake 

All purpose flour, 114 grams

Dairy milk powder, 25 grams

Corn flour, 26 grams

Baking powder, 2 teaspoons 

Granulated sugar, 168 grams

Salted butter, 56 grams, room temperature (if using unsalted then add ½ tsp of salt)

Large eggs, 2

Canola oil, ½ cup

Full fat milk, 90 ml

Vanilla essence, 1 tablespoon

Dark rum, 90 ml 

For the Syrup 

Salted butter, 56 grams (add about ½ tsp salt, if using unsalted butter)

Sugar, 60 grams

Water, 60 ml

Dark rum, 60 ml 

HOW TO: 

Sift together the first 4 ingredients and keep aside 

In a larger mixing bowl, cream together sugar and butter using an electric or stand mixer until pale and fluffy. Add the above flour mix to this and whisk to from fine crumbs. 

In another bowl, whisk together the last 5 ingredients and pour it over the flour mix. Using the mixer combine well to get a thin batter. 

Preheat oven to 160 degree Celsius.

Pour the batter into a prepared bundt pan and bake for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Let it cool. 

While the cake cools, bring together all ingredients for the syrup, except rum, in a saucepan and over medium heat bring it to boil. Let it boil for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and mix in rum. 

Once the cake is cooled, invert the pan to a flat surface. Clean the pan and pat dry, and put the cake back in. Poke holes in the cake using toothpick and pour the syrup over, making sure there is no dry area that you can see. Let the cake soak the rum for about 1-2 hours, before you can slice and serve. You may even refrigerate it and the cake will still be moist, soft and gorgeous as it was!

Have a shot… oops, I mean, a slice, sit back and enjoy!