Rum Raisin Butter Bundt with Rum Honey Glaze for #BundtaMonth

This rum raisin Bundt cake is loaded with rich butter and topped with a rum honey glaze.

It’s time for another Bundt cake!  And for this month’s BundtaMonth the theme is Boozy December so my mind instantly turned to rum and raisin.  It’s a classic combination, at least in the Caribbean.  Ask any Trinidadian.  Rum is an essential part of many of their recipes from black cake to rum punch to ice cream.  Indeed, rum raisin is one of their most traditional ice cream flavors. 

Also, my current liquor cabinet, which is an 8-inch space of cabinet in my kitchen, is extremely limited to what was purchased upon entry in Duty Free. Here in Dubai, you cannot buy alcohol until you have a liquor license.  And you cannot get a liquor license until you have a resident’s permit. And you cannot get a resident’s permit until you can stay in the country for three weeks at a stretch because you have to surrender your passport to the relevant authorities. And my dear husband was only here a couple of days before he was off again to Paris.

So, without further ado, I give you this rum raisin Bundt cake with loads of rich butter, topped with a rum honey glaze.  I made this for the lovely real estate agent who helped us get settled in our house.  She went beyond the normal call of duty, even taking me to buy snacks at the grocery store on the day that I was waiting around in an empty house without transport or telephone for the airfreight and rental furniture. She deserved a cake filled with booze and gratitude!

When I sent this home with her whole, my only request was that she send me some photos when she cut it, so the last photo is hers.  If you need a recommendation for a real estate agent here in Dubai, just let me know.  She is wonderful!

Ingredients
For the cake:
100g golden raisins
1 cup or 240ml golden rum, divided into half
3 cups or 375g flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups or 340g butter, softened
1 1/2 cups or 240g sugar
3 eggs
1 egg yolk
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/4 cup milk
1 cup or 240ml heavy cream

For the glaze:
1/2 cup or 115g butter
1/2 cup or 120ml honey
1/2 cup or 120ml rum

Method
Put the raisins in a small bowl and pour half of the rum for the cake over them.  Allow to soak until all the rum is absorbed by the raisins.  (This can be done a day ahead to save time on baking day.)  Hide the bowl in the refrigerator or passersby will keep pinching raisins out of your rum bowl.  Or was that just me?  Anyway, better to put them out of sight.

When you are ready to proceed, preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C.  Thoroughly butter or spray your Bundt pan with non-stick spray and then coat it with a little flour.

In a medium size bowl, mix together your flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.  Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, use electric beaters or your stand mixer to cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

Add in the eggs and egg yolk and vanilla and beat again until blended.  Don't forget to scrape down the bowl with a rubber spatula.

Add in the rum and beat again.  Don’t be alarmed when the batter looks curdled.  As we add in the flour mixture that curdled look will go away.

Add about a third of the flour mixture to the batter, along with a third of the cream.

Beat until just incorporated and then add another third of each.

Continue the process with the last third of flour mixture and cream.

Fold in the rum soaked raisins.  There might be a little rummy raisin juice in the bowl.  Hum that in too.

Spoon your batter into your prepared Bundt pan, then smooth out the top with your spatula.

Bake in the preheated over for 55 to 60 minutes or until a long wooden pick inserted in center of cake comes out clean.  Mine actually took closer to 70 minutes.

Cool in pan for 10 minutes.  Remove from pan and cool completely on a cake plate.

When the cake is completely cool, put the honey, rum and butter for the glaze into a saucepan.  Turn on the fire on low and mix together as the butter melts.  It may already start to bubble.

After a minute or so the fumes from the rum should have evaporated and you can turn the heat up a little.  We don’t want a fire here, folks.  Boil the mixture for three to four minutes, stirring constantly.  If you have a candy thermometer, you are looking to reach a temperature 240-248°F or 115-120°C.  If you don’t have a candy thermometer, not to worry.

Remove from heat and stir to cool slightly.  Not too long or the glaze will begin to harden and you will have to eat it like candy and start over.  While I realize that many of you won’t have a problem with this, I just wanted to warn you.

Use a spoon to ladle the glaze over your completely cooled cake.  Do not poke it with your fingertips because you will leave print marks behind in the shiny, shiny glaze.

Give this cake to someone who deserves a special treat or share it with someone you love.   Because it’s just that wonderful.

Enjoy!

BundtaMonth is the brainchild of Anuradha of Baker Street and Lora of Cake Duchess.  And they would love for you to join us.

Have a look at all the lovely boozy Bundts we have baked this month!

Araby Spice-Limoncello Bundt Cake with Limoncello Glaze by Lora from Cake Duchess

Bailey's and Buttershots Bundt Cake by Karen from In The Kitchen With KP

Banana Pineapple Bundt Cake with Coconut Rum Glaze by Carrie from Poet In The Pantry

Chocolate Bourbon Mini Bundt by Holly from A Baker's House

Chocolate Port Bundt Cake by Paula from Vintage Kitchen

Eggnog Rum Pound Cake by Dorothy from Shockingly Delicious

Madeira Pound Bundt Cake by Renee from Magnolia Days

Mint Chocolate Chip Bundt Cake with Creme de Menthe by Laura from The Spiced Life

Shirley Temple Bundt Cake Kim Beaulieu | Cravings Of A Lunatic

Spiked Eggnog Bundt Cake with Bourbon Glaze by Kate from Food Babbles

Sweet Potato Bourbon Bundt by Jennie from The Messy Baker Blog

Long Island Iced TeaCake by Deb from Knitstamatic

Rum and Raisin Butter Bundt with Rum Honey Glaze by Stacy from Food Lust People Love

Tiramisu Bundt Cake with Kahlúa Mascarpone Glaze by Anuradha from Baker Street

Vanilla and Bourbon Cake by Kate from Diet Hood

Vanilla Mini Bundt Cakes with Kahlúa by Alice from Hip Foodie Mom

Here's how you can be a part of Bundt-a-Month:

- Get inspired by your favorite cocktail, mocktail or just use your favorite liqueur and bake us a Bundt for Boozy December.

- Post it before December 31, 2012.

- Use the #BundtAMonth hashtag in your title. (For ex: title should read #BundtAMonth: Chocolate Cinnamon Bundt)

- Add your entry to the Linky tool below

- Link back to both Lora and Anuradha’s announcement posts.

 

Follow Bundt-a-Month on Facebook where we feature all our gorgeous Bundt cakes. Or head over to our Pinterest board for inspiration and choose from over 350 Bundt cake recipes.

 

Pumpkin Tres Leches Bundt Cake for #BundtaMonth

After 10 years near the equator, I am finally living in a place with seasons.  I am not sure exactly that there are four seasons in Cairo because, for me, one of the signs of autumn is leaves that turn lovely yellow, orangey, brown colors and then fall from the trees.  The nights and even days are getting cooler but the trees stay steadfastly green and the flowers are still blooming.  But since I have become part of the blogging community, I can’t ignore the most definitive sign of autumn:  All the pumpkin recipes that are flooding the internets.   This month, I am joining a group of bloggers dedicated to Bundt cake, large and mini.  Because I love a Bundt cake.  With a nod to My Big Fat Greek Wedding, I have to ask, Who can resist a cake with an hole in it?  And the theme for October is, you guessed it, pumpkin.  And since October sits nicely between Mexican Independence Day in September and American Thanksgiving in November, I decided to make a pumpkin tres leches Bundt cake.  If you are not a fan of saturated cake, by all means, just make the pumpkin Bundt and forget drenching it in the sweet milk mixture.  But I can tell you that I took this out to a dinner party for dessert and people were swooning over it in a most dramatic fashion.  It is that good.

Ingredients 
For the Bundt cake:
1/2 cup canola oil
1/2 cup milk
3 eggs
1 (15 oz) can pumpkin puree
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups sugar
3 cups flour plus extra for preparing the Bundt pan
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground allspice
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1⁄2 teaspoon salt



For the milk mixture:
1/4 cup evaporated milk
1 cup sweetened condensed milk
1/4 cup milk

For serving:
Unsweetened whipped cream (optional but highly recommended)

Method
Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and butter or non-stick spray your Bundt pan extremely well.  Sprinkle in a generous amount of flour and make sure it covers all the way up the middle part of the pan.  Set aside.

Heap all of the ingredients for the Bundt cake in your mixing bowl.  I measured out the dry ingredients first and then topped them with the wet.

Mix until well combined.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula and make sure there isn’t any still dry flour at the bottom of the bowl.

Mix on medium for at least three minutes.

Pour the batter into your prepared Bundt pan and bake in your preheated oven for 50-60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

While your Bundt is baking, whisk together the ingredients for your sweet milk mixture.  Set aside.

When your Bundt comes out of the oven, allow to cool for about five minutes and then run a knife gently around the inside of the top and middle of the cake to loosen it.  Place a plate over the top of the pan and invert to remove the cake.

Poke the cake all over with a wooden skewer or satay stick.  The little holes will allow the milk mixture to seep into the cake.

Pour about half of the sweet milk mixture into the Bundt pan and gently ease the cake back into the pan so it doesn’t splash out.

Poke holes in the bottom of the cake.

Slowly drizzle the balance of the milk mixture over it.  Cover with cling film and put the whole thing in the refrigerator until you are ready to serve.

To remove from the pan when you are ready to serve, invert a cake plate with a slope or sides on top of the Bundt pan and turn the cake over quickly.  Remove the pan.  Some sweet milk mixture will seep out of the cake.  Scrape out any sweet milk that is left behind in the pan and drizzle it over the cake.

Cut slices of cake and top with unsweetened whipped cream, if desired.  And drizzle on some of the sweet milk mixture.

Enjoy!

To learn more about BundtaMonth or to join the fabulous group of bakers for next month's challenge, head on over to Baker Street and Cake Duchess, the hosts of this Bundt-loving group.

After you have drooled over their lovely creations, scroll down to see the rest of the participating bloggers' beautiful Bundts.

Pecan Golden Syrup Bundt Cake

My house has been full these last few weeks, filled with family and good times.  Of course, it has kept me busy but it is a joy to have more folks to feed.  Since I am always looking for new ideas, I am delighted to take part for the first time in Belleau Kitchen's Random Recipe Challenge.  

Here’s how the Random Recipe Challenge works:   Number your cookbooks and choose one randomly.  Or make a big pile of them and pick one out with your eyes closed.  Then make the first recipe on the first random page you open.   Since I belong to EatYourBooks,  this was very easy.  Right now I have 89 cookbooks registered (Don’t ask me how many aren’t yet!) so I asked my daughter to pick a number and she said 11.  I counted down and the 11^th book on my list is Nigella’s Kitchen.  One of my very favorite cookbooks!  The random page I opened to was her Pecan Maple Bundt Cake, which I had yet to make, so it was perfect.  I don’t have maple syrup in Cairo but thankfully the Random Recipe rules allow for substitutions for availability or dietary restriction.  So here goes.

Ingredients

For the pecan filling:

1 rounded 1/2 cup or 75g plain flour

2 rounded tablespoons or 30g soft unsalted butter

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup or 150g pecans (or walnuts) (I used pecans, of course.) 

125ml maple or golden syrup (I used Lyle’s Golden Syrup.)

For the cake:

2 1/2 cups or 310g flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda or bicarbonate of soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 rounded 1/2 cup or 125g soft unsalted butter

Scant 3/4 cup or 160g sugar

2 eggs

1 cup or 250ml sour cream or crème fraîche

1–2 teaspoons confectioners' or icing sugar, for decoration

Method

Preheat the oven to 350°F or 180°C and grease your Bundt pan. 

First, make the filling.  Toast your pecans in a baking pan for about 10-15 minutes in the preheating oven.  Watch them carefully so they don’t scorched.  Chop the pecans roughly.

Mix the flour with the butter using a fork.  You want it to look like small crumbs.  

Stir in the cinnamon, chopped pecans and golden syrup.  This will be very thick, almost solid.   Set aside.

To make the cake batter, measure your dry cake ingredients into a small bowl: the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.  Mix well. 

Cream the butter and sugar together in a large bowl with beaters or in your standing mixer.   

Then beat in one tablespoon of the flour mixture, then one egg.  

Then add another tablespoonful of flour mixture followed by the second egg.

Add the rest of the flour mixture and beat while adding the sour cream.  The batter will be very thick.

Spoon just more than half of the cake batter around the Bundt pan.  Spread the batter up the sides so that you make a channel of sorts in the middle of the batter.  This is to avoid having the filling leak out while baking.

Use a tablespoon to fill the channel in the batter with your pecan filling. 

Cover with the remaining batter and smooth the top. 

Bake in the preheated oven for 30-40 minutes.   Check with a cake tester after 30 minutes.  Make sure to get the tester into the cake part because the filling will probably not come out clean, even when the cake is baked through.

Let the cake cool for 10-15 minutes and then loosen the sides with a small spatula or knife.  Turn the cake out.  

Cool completely and then decorate by sprinkling with icing or confectioners’ sugar.  This cake was gone in a heartbeat!  I think they even licked the plate. 

Enjoy!

If you would like to join the next challenge, follow Belleau Kitchen on Twitter or join the group on Facebook. 

Click on the graphic to see how other bloggers have met the challenge this month!