This Rum Bundt Cake is luscious–soft and moist, with rum baked-in and soaked-in. It’s perfect for an indulgent New Year’s Eve treat, or make it any time of year!
The most basic form of this recipe came to me on a postcard sent by my mother-in-law’s husband. He travels a lot, and sent me a card from the Virgin Islands that included a rum bundt cake recipe on the front.
The thing was, the recipe was squeezed into limited space and quite basic. The baking temperature was low and strange, too–no way was an enriched bundt cake baking at 300-degrees in 45 minutes.
So, I rewrote the recipe. I also added more rum. I used the return-to-pan soaking method I learned from Bake Off years ago to make sure this baby was really rummy. That liquid gold shouldn’t drip off. No, it needs to be used to bathe a cake.
The end result is fragrant with rum. The outside is crisp while the crumb is tender and moist without being soggy. It’s not a super-sweet cake, either, but it is definitely lush.
Modified greatly from a souvenir postcard.
These incredible Peppermint Bark cookies really do taste like peppermint bark, but in chewy, beautiful cookie form!
These cookies even look holiday-colorful due to the bits of crushed candy cane throughout. I used a Hershey’s Chocolate Mint Candy Cane, but many varieties of candy cane would do. You could even mix it up with different colors and flavors!
I kept things easier by using chocolate chips, but this would be great with chopped chocolate, too, for different textures and flavors. Peppermint Bark itself comes in different variants, after all!
These cookies would be fantastic for a holiday cookie exchange, or to serve at a gathering. Or, if you’re cheap like me, bake them later on in January using candy canes scored on clearance!
Modified from Bake from Scratch Magazine Holiday Cookies 2019.
Do you need cookies ready, FAST? These no-bake wonders are prepared in minutes and just need 15 minutes to set.
Traditional pecan pralines are crunchy and sweet. This no-bake cookie version definitely has all that going on, with added chewiness from coconut.
I highly recommend using unsweetened coconut flakes or shreds here, as these cookies are not lacking at all in the sugariness department!
It’s amazing to me how something so goopy and hot can so quickly become set and easy to handle. This is the ultimate in fast-and-delicious cookies.
I’m taking part in Giftmas again this year, an annual effort coordinated by Rhonda Parrish for the benefit of the Edmonton Food Bank. I don’t need to state the reasons why helping food banks is more important right now than in past years. We need to help each other. We can’t connect in person, but we can connect with a few bucks that will help fill bellies and add warmth to the world through kindness. If you’re American like me, your dollars will deliver extra bang with each buck, too. $1 = 3 meals.
This year, Giftmas is giving something extra to readers: a story: Eleven of us are participating in what is called an “exquisite corpse” story. One person begins, and each person adds another section in the sequence. There is no planning, no plot. The story zigs and zags with each new raconteur.
Yesterday’s story segment was by Iseult Murphy. My contribution is below. The story will continue to grow and change over the next week! Keep reading, and please, donate.
Agnes certainly felt like a living person, her warmth muffled by her fuzzy woolen coat. “They said you headed off to the store, in a snow storm, to buy cheese. You were never found, but they thought…” Cherie’s stomach lurched with every incredible leap taken by the fox, snow crunching and squealing beneath his paws each time he landed.
“They,” scoffed Agnes. “The town police? It’s a wonder they can find a donut shop! At least I vanished for a noble cause. I did get that cheese, by the way, and it was far superior to anything found at that neon blight called Buy-It-Rite back on Earth.”
Right. She was most definitely not on Earth now. Cherie squinted her eyes shut as snow pattered her face. Septimus had landed in an especially deep bank. “Okay,” she said, spitting out some flakes. “You’re alive after all. Yay. You came through a fantasy portal for cheese. Yay to that, too. I might have come here more readily if I’d known that good cheese awaited me. But why do I have a bad feeling that those snowmen want to eat us?”
“You’re a smart girl, listening to your intuition,” said Agnes.
Septimus glanced back. “It helps when carnivores let it be known they are carnivores.” He flashed his own pointed teeth. They were icicles. “Now hold on!”
He advised such with a reason. Cherie’s frantic check showed the snowmen still trailed them all-too-closely, their rounded bottoms gliding over the snow. Cherie clutched Agnes impossibly tighter as Septimus sped up. Rather than lap, he plowed through the snow. Cherie grunted and held on as the world turned black with whiteness.
Then suddenly, they were through. His claws tapped on icy rocks as they climbed a slope–a slope to an incredible castle on high, its peaked towers threatening to puncture the very clouds.
“Oh.” The reaction escaped Cherie like a gasp.
“As you can see,” Agnes said with blatant smugness, “I have upgraded my domicile somewhat.”
“Lady A!” sang a voice from above. “You in a difficult spot today, love?”
Why did that voice sound familiar? Cherie craned up her head to see a pegasus. An honest-to-goodness flying horse with a shimmering white coat and faint gray dapples across the hindquarters. Broad wings flapped outward, fanning back Cherie’s hair as the pegasus dove low.
“Oh, it’s those snowmen again. They are always hungrier on colder–“
“Clover?” Cherie cried out. “Clover, is that you?”
Clover had been her so-called imaginary friend during her lonely, awful childhood. Together they had romped across field and fen and made everything into a grand adventure. Back then, Clover had been an awkward colt to match Cherie as an awkward girl.
He’d become the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.
The pegasus’s hooves clattered as he landed beside them, keeping pace with Septimus’s continued run. “Cherie?” his voice cracked. “You’re real?“
“I’m real?” Cherie sounded almost hysterical to her own ears. She wanted to glare accusingly at Agnes but had to settle for giving her an additional squeeze.
“I can explain,” Agnes said airily.
As heavily as Septimus panted, he managed an incredulous cackle. “Oh, this should be good,” he said as they pounded across the long drawbridge to the castle gate.
To be continued… by Jemima Pett tomorrow!
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