A couple of weeks ago I shared our search to find an easy Icelandic Cookie recipe for my son’s cultural Geography class. When he came home and informed me his class was once again doing a project, this time on Central and Latin America, I told him, “Be sure to get Mexico!” We could do a project on Mexico with our eyes closed. I have tons of photos and souvenirs, including a huge sombrero my dad picked up on a trip when I was a teenager. Dinero? Yep, have some pesos in a drawer, and as for cooking? The new son-in-law works as a Spanish translator and practices his skills by listening to Spanish cooking videos, translating them and making the dishes. But, did he get Mexico? No. He came home and told me he was doing a project on the Virgin Islands. “That should be okay, Mom, you’ve been there and we have souvenirs and stuff. What’s a native dish we (translated: me) can make?”
I thought about this and all I could come up with was fried conch shells. “What about rum cake, Mom?” my daughter suggested. “Yeah!” I agreed, “Wait… you’re taking this to school.” “It’s okay, Mom,” my son informed me, “someone brought a nasty Russian dish made with Vodka last time.” We decided Rum Cake it is. On my trip to the Virgin Islands I had the best moist delicious Tortuga Rum Cake. I found this recipe and decided to try it for ourselves. It requires a few steps but tastes amazing. To begin, mix up a batch of cake flour, salt, baking powder, pudding, sugar, vegetable oil and butter. Set this aside. (In a hurry? Substitute a package of yellow cake mix for the flour, salt, baking powder and sugar.)
Next, mix together your moist ingredients; milk, eggs, rum, oil and vanilla. Add this mixture to the crumb mixture and stir until smooth.
Spray mini bundt pans with cooking spray (or use one large bunt pan.) Add chopped walnuts to each pan and fill 1/2 to 3/4 full of batter.
- Basic batter recipe
- 2 cups cake flour
- 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
- 4 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup butter, cut into bits
- 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 1 (3 1/2 ounce) package vanilla instant pudding mix
- For the Cake
- 1/2 cup finely chopped walnuts
- 1/2 cup milk
- 4 eggs
- 1/2 cup dark rum
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Rum soaking Glaze
- 1/2 cup butter (do not substitute)
- 1/4 cup water
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup dark rum
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
- Mix all ingredients for basic batter together in a bowl. Set aside. Mix together wet ingredients; milk, eggs, rum, vegetable oil and extract. Beat basic batter and wet ingredients until smooth. In 30 mini bundt cups, sprayed with cooking spray, add two teaspoons chopped walnuts. Fill each mini pan half full of batter. Bake for fifteen minutes or until a knife dipped into the cooking batter comes out clean. Top with rum glaze. Make rum glaze by mixing together butter, water, sugar and rum. Allow to come to a boil in a saucepan. Turn down heat on low and allow to simmer for five minutes.
- This can also be made in one large bundt pan. With 1/4 to 1/2 cup walnuts scatterd around the top of the pan. Cook for 5 minutes .
Next make the glaze from water, rum, sugar and butter. When cakes are done, add a spoonful of glaze on both the top and the bottom of the cakes. These are best if allowed to sit for a few hours to soak up the rum glaze mixture.
You can vary the taste of these cakes by using different varieties of pudding or substituting different varieties of cake mixes for the original ingredients. These are just as good as the ones I remember from the Virgin Islands!
Do you have a favorite recipe from another country? Share it with us!
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These look really good. I love that you make small, individual ones. I am going to try these as I think my family would love them.
These look so great! I’m going to be making these 🙂
I’ve had rum cake once in my life! These little mini cakes look awesome!
This looks so delicious. Thanks for the recipe. I will try it!
These look so good. They sound fairly easy to make too which is the kind of recipe I love. These would be perfect for the big game!
Oh, well, would you look at that! My own personal little rum cakes. I need to make these ASAP!
These look so delicious i can not wait to make some. I have never made Tortuga Rum Cake before.
That looks really delicious! Just as good as the original perhaps?
I could get in trouble with these bite sized yummies! These cakes would be perfect for a pot luck or family dinner.
These rum cakes not only look delicious but they are really cute. I love that they are bite sized.
These are looking so delicious. The pictures tells you the real story. The recipe looks easy to try as well. Thanks for sharing.
YUM!! These look so good. Pinned it!
Yum that looks tasty! I haven’t had anything like this before it looks really good though! I may have to try it sometime!
This sounds delicious. I can’t wait to try your recipe!
I don’t have a favorite recipe per se, but when I was in Switzerland in 2003 I tasted salad with fresh corn on it and it blew my mind!
Yum these look amazing,the size of them is perfect too so that I would not eat too much.
These look so tasty! I like the size of them too. Would help prevent me from over indulging!
I’ve never tried them, but I have wanted to for so long! Now I know how to make them myself!
I’ve never tried a rum cake before, but man it looks delicious. I am so hungry just looking at it.
Those look scrumptious! I love the mini size – and would probably convince myself it was okay to have two!
You always have great recipes on this site! Thanks for posting.
First of all, those are super cute! Second of all, I like the combination of ingredients in this recipe!
I’ve never tried Tortuga Rum Cakes, either – but I so want some now – looking so yummy! Thanks for the share of your recipe 🙂
That picture makes these look so delectable. I need these in my life!
These rum cakes look so good. I like the idea of mini portions. I can add it easily to my husband’s lunch box
I remember being in school and having these days. I always got lucky and got Mexico. You did really good. Very creative.
These look so delicious! I love the mini portions too!
These look so good I could eat 5 at once. 😉
You had me at rum! I love individual cakes, so cute!
These sound great. I love how tiny they are!
Those are SO CUTE! And they look delicious!
I have never tried Tortuga Rum Cakes before but I like the individual mini-cakes idea! How did this go over with the classmates? A+ I hope! 🙂
We are not allowed to send food into school with our kids, but I could easily eat them all myself 😉
Those sound so good. I love the individual size of them.