November 7: Myers's Rum Cake

After Halloween's flailing, flying flop of a cake, I needed a great result this weekend.  Either that, or I would need to drown my sorrows.

Rum cake.

I think everyone who was alive in the 1970's and 80's has prepared, or at least eaten, the Bacardi Rum Cake recipe that appeared in Bacardi's magazine ads.  The recipe contains a yellow-cake mix, instant vanilla pudding and Bacardi Dark Rum.  Rich tasting and moist, but a little cloying from the mix+pudding, it was a staple at adult parties when I was growing up.  That recipe was one that I copied (by hand, on college-ruled notebook paper) to take to college in my collection of essential recipes from home.  Recipes for Mom's black raspberry cake, her spinach quiche, her spaghetti sauce, our friend's heavily-guarded-top-secret apple spice bread, Granna's chicken spaghetti, Granna's cornbread dressing, Judy's chess pie, Judy's pecan pie and fruit cobbler all had a place in my folder full of recipes.

During high school in Atlanta, in the 1980's, the ultimate treat was to go to The Dessert Place with friends.  We would order a dessert and coffee to celebrate a birthday or a fun outing at the Virginia-Highland location.  With our moms, would take a ladylike tea-time break from shopping and stop at The Dessert Place on East Paces Ferry in Buckhead.  The cream cheese brownies from The Dessert Place were the ultimate treat for me; the definition of indulgence.  A party with catered desserts from there was a symbol of good taste and luxury for my generation of Atlantans.

In the late 1990's, my mom became friends with Bennett Frisch, one of the two founders of The Dessert Place.  Bennett and her business partner, Sheryl Meddin, had just published a cookbook containing recipes for many of the popular desserts from their restaurant, Stressed Is Just Desserts Spelled Backwards.  I received and inscribed copy of the book as a gift from my mom when I was working for the Secret Service posted in Jackson, Mississippi.

While there is no recipe in the book for those fabulous brownies, there are many recipes that I love to use.  But, I had never made the Myers's Rum Cake.

After I decided to make this recipe, I found a fabulous new Bundt pan for the season.  It's called "Autumn Wreath," so I probably would have bought it anyway just to make cakes for our daughter. I had to buy it as a treat to make up for for last week's debacle.  The best part of the design of the pan, for this recipe, is the acorn-shaped crevices.  This recipe calls for greasing and flouring the pan and then adding toasted, chopped pecans and almonds to the bottom of the pan before filling it with batter.  So that the finished cake comes out with a crown of nut-filled nuts!

The recipe calls for using all purpose flour, and since I know it was written by an Atlanta baker, I chose White Lily All-Purpose because it is a traditional Southern flour.  After baking, the cake gets a sugar-butter-rum glaze while it is still hot in the pan.

This light and silky cake has lifted my mood.  It turned out spectacularly!  The glaze and nuts adorning the outside of the cake made it very attractive, especially in the autumnal-themed pan.  But the silkiness of the tender cake inside made it a real winner.  It had none of the sticky sweetness of its Bacardi & cake mix alter ego.  The rum flavor is subtle and the cake has just enough richness.

Success!

Next Weekend:  Lemon Verbena Pound Cake