TWD: Rum-Drenched Vanilla Cakes

This week's TWD was chosen by the fabulous Wendy of Pink Stripes: rum-drenched vanilla cakes. We've made a few of Dorie's rum desserts now and I've found that Dorie likes rum a lot more than I do so I knew I'd be cutting back significantly on that ingredient. I guess I'm just not a big rum fan in general, with one exception -- pina coladas!! I absolutely love them, but it's probably been years since I had one. It tends to be more of a tropical vacation drink option for me and it's been a while since Shane and I have had a chance to go somewhere warm and sunny and just sit on the beach. Hopefully we'll be remedying that problem this fall, but more on that another time.

I was psyched to discover just how easy this recipe was when I opened the book. No mixer, no butter to bring to room temperature....I was a happy camper! I ended up making 1/3 of the recipe because the math worked out easily that way (well, sort of - I should say the eggs and butter were easily divisible by 3, the flour was a bit more tricky). Dorie bakes the cake in a loaf pan, but I took the opportunity to get some more use out of my mini bundt pan and had just enough batter for 4 little cakes. Aside from cutting back on the rum in the cakes (I used about 1/6 of the amount the recipe called for), I also skipped the syrup that is brushed on the cakes when they come out of the oven. My mini bundts baked for about 25 minutes, but that was probably a few minutes more than they needed as I wasn't paying close enough attention to them.



The verdict? Not a new favorite, but still tasty. I think I made a mistake not brushing the cakes with syrup as mine seemed a bit dry. The flavors were nice though so maybe I'll give them another shot some day. For now though, I bet a big scoop of ice cream on top will be just the thing to fix my cakes! Thanks to Wendy for hosting this week! You can find the recipe on her blog or on page 226 of Baking: From My Home to Yours.

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