Merry Christmas: Bacardi Rum Cake

Every Christmas for as long as I can remember we have Rum Cake for dessert. I took over making it and glazing it a few years ago. It is delicious, moist, and best served with french vanilla ice cream! Here's the Bacardi Rum Cake recipe we use. (We've made it with Bacardi rum and non-Bacardi rum, and I'm going to tell you, it tasted the same.)

Cake:
1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts (we like black walnuts best for their flavor)
1 18 1/2 oz. pkg. yellow cake mix
1 3 3/4 pkg. Jell-O instant vanilla pudding mix
4 eggs
1/2 cup cold water
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup Bacardi dark rum (80 proof)

Glaze:
1/4 lb. butter
1/4 cup water
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup Bacardi dark rum (80 proof)

Preheat oven to 325. Grease and flour 10" tube or Bundt pan.

Sprinkle nuts over bottom of pan. Mix all cake ingredients together. Pour batter over nuts. Bake 1 hour. Cool. Invert on serving plate. Prick top. Drizzle and smooth glaze evenly over top and sides. Allow cake to absorb glaze. Repeat until glaze is used up.

For glaze, melt butter in saucepan. Stir in water and sugar. Boil 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Stir in rum.

The recipe recommends decorating with whole maraschino cherries and border of sugar frosting or whipped cream and serving with seedless green grapes dusted with powdered sugar. We don't do this, but we do serve with french vanilla ice cream.

I not only poke small holes into the cake to absorb the glaze, but also use a pastry brush to brush the glaze back off the plate/cake stand and onto the cake.

Also, if you've never cooked with alcohol before, be careful when you pour the rum into the glaze! The alcohol burns off and can burn you!

Merry Christmas!

Nothing says Christmas like rum cake!