Better than the Bahamas: Golden Rum Cake

St. Patrick's Day is known for it's drunken debauchery, but I am just not a fan of beer. I'd much rather spend the holiday trying out new boozy baking, so that's exactly what I did.

After having a rum cake at La Palma in Chicago, I desperately wanted to bake my own rum cake. I couldn't get enough about the sweet rum that keeps the whole cake moist, sweet and a little kick to it. I found this Golden Rum Cake Recipe at AllRecipes and convinced my boyfriend to let me make it when I visited him in Georgia. Truthfully, it wasn't that hard. Boozy cake on St. Patty's will always be welcomed.

Golden Rum Cake
via Allrecipe and Jackie Smith

Ingredients
    For Cake
 -  about 1 cup chopped walnuts
  - 1 package of yellow cake mix
  - 1 3.4 oz package instant vanilla pudding mix (I used the no sugar one)
  - 4 eggs
  - 1/2 cup water
  - 1/2 cup oil (vegetable is what is listed, I used a Smart Balance which is a blend of canola, soy and olive)
  - 1/2 cup dark rum (Got a little captain in ya?)

   For Glaze
  - 1/2 cup butter
  - 1/4 cup water
  - 1 cup white sugar
  - 1/2 cup dark rum

Directions
 1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Grease and flour your Bundt pan - make sure it's thoroughly coated, I had problems with a part of mine sticking and breaking.
 2. Sprinkle the chopped walnuts over the bottom of the pan. You can use more/less walnuts depending on how much your pan can hold or how much you'd like.
 3. In a large bowl, combine the cake mix, pudding mix, eggs, 1/2 cup water, 1/2 cup oil and 1/2 cup rum. Blend well.
 4. Pour the batter into your pan over the chopped nuts.
 5. Bake for 60 minutes (checking periodically) on center rack until a toothpick or knife stuck in comes out clean. It'll be a nice light golden brown.
 6. Let the cake sit in the pan for 10 minutes, then flip onto a serving plate. Here's where you'll find out if you greased the pan enough. Mine stuck and I had to use a knife to loosen the edges up - and I still had it fall apart a bit.
 7. While the cake is cooking in the pan or on the serving plate, make the glaze. In a sauce pan, combine the 1/2 cup butter, 1/4 cup water and 1 cup of sugar. Bring to a boil over medium heat. Once boiling, continue boiling it for 5 minutes while stirring constantly. Remove from heat and stir in the 1/2 cup of rum.
 8. Brush glaze over the top and sides of the cake. Allow the cake to absorb the glaze so it gets moist and boozy. Continue glazing the cake until you use it all up or it's so glazey that it might fall apart. If any parts broke, use the glaze to help it stick together and get the glaze into the center of the cake
 9. Serve and Enjoy!

I made this cake in the afternoon and had it ready for late that night when my friend's came over. They had just been on a cruise to the Bahamas and were stopping by on their drive home. Even though they had rum cake in their bags, they wanted to try mine. In fact, they said it was better than the Bahamas' rum cake. This was probably one of the greatest compliments I've gotten.

So if you need a little boozy baking, or want to pretend you're in the Bahamas, try out this rum cake for a moist, sweet treat.

Browning Bananas and a Craving for Cookies

It's that time of the year when the snow begins to thaw, it starts to rain more, and we throw out that old pair of snow boots. Jackets get lighter. The sun shines more often. And the Girl Scouts set up their stands around town to sell cookies of all flavors. Sadly, I wasn't able to buy my Girl Scout cookies before Lent - where I gave up chocolate and candy. Now all I can do is drool over samoas and tagalongs from afar. This drooling has led me to craving cookies like the cookie monster.

This morning I discovered that our last two bananas were starting to turn brown. This is usually the key sign to make banana bread, but it didn't interest me as a baking adventure. I wanted something new. And I still desperately wanted cookies. This meant in between classes I would scour the internet for recipes (on cooking light, all recipes, real simple, and my recipes). I found a lot of awesome recipes, but this idea I fell in love with: Banana Oatmeal Cookies.

An episode of Good Eats got me into using Oats, especially for their health benefits. Plus I could make a healthier snack that didn't break my lenten promise - or hopefully my waistband. I set out later that night on a fun baking adventure adapted from this original recipe at all recipes.com.

Banana Oatmeal Cookies

Ingredients
 - 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
 - 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
 - 1 teaspoon salt
 - 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
 - 3/4 teaspoon (generous) ground cinnamon
 - 1/2 cup plain greek yogurt
 - 1 teaspoon cornstarch
 - 1 cup sugar (I used splenda half and half blend, meaning I only used 1/2 cup)
 - 1 egg
 - 2 medium mashed bananas
 - 1 3/4 cups cooking oats
 - 1/2 cup pecans (or your favorite nuts, preferably chopped)

Directions
 1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease baking sheets.
         Since we actually don't have any cookie sheets here right now (go figure), I used a mini cupcake pan and a pizza brick to hold my dough. The mini cupcake can made adorable little muffin shaped cookies. My sister called them muffins, but they're softer inside with a nice crunch outside.

2. In a medium bowl, add flour, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, and cinnamon.

3. Cream together the greek yogurt, cornstarch, and sugar.
          I decided to use greek yogurt instead of the 1 cup of shortening, to cut down on fat and give it a moist and soft texture inside. I found out that it's good to add cornstarch to your recipes from the Livestrong website for tips on baking with Greek yogurt. It keeps the yogurt soft and from clumping or really mixing up the texture of the baked goods. They also recommend keeping some of the original, such as butter or oil, but I just avoided that all together and went with all Greek yogurt. This is okay with cookies, but might not work as well for cakes.

4. Add egg, banana, oatmeal, and nuts to the mixture and mix well.
         This step was interesting since I don't have a stand mixer or a hand mixer. I started off doing step 3 in a small food processor. This worked fine until all this stuff was supposed to get tossed in. The egg and banana were more important to get really blended - so I added them into the food processor and got that mixed in while I added the oatmeal and nuts to the dry mixture.

5. Mix together the wet and dry ingredients.
        This is where it was fine for me using the small food processor. It all gets put together. Of course, it may have taken me longer to get everything incorporated, it works if you would like to focus on the egg and banana in the wet mixture and the oatmeal and nuts in the dry. They are combined very quickly.

6. Drop by teaspoon fulls onto cookie sheet - or into a mini cupcake pan. Or whatever way you feel like mixing up this recipe.

7. Bake at 400 for around 15 minutes, or until they just start to brown. For smaller cookies (or muffins) they end at 10 minutes, but the larger are about 15. Let them cool completely and store in a closed container to keep that moist banana flavor.



Trust me, this is a sweet treat you can keep coming back to and not feel bad about - either for a Lenten promise, your waistline, or your heart health.

- Mollie

Outsiders in London: Brownies

Outsider Tart - Wine and Cheese Festival

Of course, the moment I heard there was going to be a Chocolate Festival in London it was on my calendar. The main event for me was the baking demonstration with David from The Outsider Tart. I had tried their peanut butter cheesecake brownie at the Wine and Cheese Festival earlier in my London adventures and fell in love. I was determined when I saw they were doing a baking demonstration that I had to go.

Little did I know that this was an American bakery - until I googled it. Of all the things for me to fall in love with in London it was an American bakery. Funny, right?

The bakery was started when both Davids (David Lesniak and David Muniz) moved to London from New York. They started The Outsider Tart to bring American baked goods to the area, focusing on brownies, cupcakes, whoopie pies, and cookies. For them, it was about spreading recipes that had been passed down for generations and showing that baking can be accessible to everyone. For me, it was a taste of home.

The cooking demonstration was cold, wet, and we were all huddled in folding chairs in a large white tent. But it was worth every minute. The David who wasn't sick showed up and had the host of the festival help him create two of their favorite brownie recipes. The fun part was that he didn't take himself too seriously. Although they have their own pans made specially for them, he emphasized how anyone can bake and that you have to keep going no matter what gets thrown at you. He even forgot to add some liquor to one of the brownie batters until it was in the pan, but that didn't faze him.


He made a chocolate-cherry cheesecake brownie that was prime competition for their peanut butter cheesecake brownie. The brownie and cheesecake were mixed together in this beautiful soft meld of flavors. I think their real trick is that when swirling together the cheesecake and the brownie mix it's very simple and light. You aren't supposed to shove the knife in and swirl it dramatically - as I know I do to try and get that marbled look. Instead he emphasized a light drawing of the knife back and forth across the plan and finishing there. Don't go back again. Don't play with it. Don't try to be too creative. This way the brownie batter is still mostly at the bottom, but you get a nice moist mix of the two to give it that mix of flavors.

These brownies were so good that I was begging for more, literally. They had trays of samples for everyone and the leftovers I called out and asked for. When it comes to brownies this good, you can be greedy.

I now desperately want their new book Baked in America. It can be ordered online at their website, through Amazon, or picked up at their store. If you're in London stop by their store. I was really disappointed I didn't go, but was at least able to take advantage of seeing them at the two food festivals. Back in America, I still want their recipes. There's 120 in their new book too and I can not stop drooling over the cheesecake brownies.

Perhaps it's the taste of home for another outsider in London that drew me to them, but that doesn't decrease the deliciousness of these baked goods.
- Mollie

With Tea and Coffee You Need Cake

One of my favorite things I've done in London is go to the Southbank Food Festivals at the Southbank Center. They've had a wine and cheese festival, a tea and coffee festival, and in December there is a chocolate festival. Can you guess which one I'm excited about the most?

Yet due to the amount of stalls and all the exiting things in London, I wasn't able to go to any of the classes and demonstrations before the Tea and Coffee festival. And I love classes and watching people cook, it's part of the reason why I'm obsessed with the Food Network.

So when the Tea and Coffee festival proved to be smaller and more calm on a Sunday, I was easily drawn to the white demonstration tent. It helped draw me in that she was letting people taste the dough she was mixing. I found out through her talking, mixing, and attempting not to freeze in the drop of temperature that she was Caroline Hope and she does very intimate, detailed, 3-hour student classes. This demonstration was based off her "Victoria Sponge Cake" cooking class. Although not the full class or hands-on, she explained a lot about sponge cake and baking in general - things that any aspiring foodie would love to be in on.

Specifically, she talked a lot about mixing. Mixing is something I probably take for granted due to the various hand mixers and stand mixers I've been given and allowed to use. You just let it go and when it's mixed you're ready. It's simple, right? Nope. Especially not when it comes to Caroline Hope.

If mixing by hand, she emphasized the importance of a wooden spoon. There's also the discussion about mixing in the same direction the whole time to really get the air in there for a lighter cake, although neither her nor I really believe that's completely necessary. She wasn't as big of a fan of electric mixers, though her exhaustion seemed to beg for one. Although it takes a lot of time, she said the science of using a wooden spoon and really giving it time and the air it needed would create a lighter, moist sponge cake. Perhaps my lack of experience in the art of the sponge is what never made me think of it, but yes, those are all the things you want in a sponge cake.

The weather also has a huge impact. She was having a hard time mixing due to it being so cold and her cooking in an open-air tent. The bowl was ice cold and it took a lot longer for everything to really come together. She emphasized the need to bake in a slightly above typical room temperature kitchen.

It also comes down to the temperature of your oven. She said a lot about the allowance the companies have in exact temperature and why ovens vary so much - so really get to know your oven. I know that the ones in our University halls are extremely difficult to work with and has made me appreciate my mom's oven time and time again.

What was really fun about this demonstration though was that she made 4 small cakes and frosted two, larger, pre-made cakes with coffee frosting. Ah! So that's how it fits into the coffee festival. She also emphasized how much you can do with a sponge cake recipe, adding flavors to the cake or the frosting to make it perfect for any occasion. Lemon, Orange, Coffee, Chocolate, whatever you want. I completely agreed on her coffee frosting tip though: to beat it by hand. Frosting just usually comes out better that way and then you don't have to worry about it getting too liquidy and falling right off your cake.

The cake she made was a success, I'd say. I got to try a small slice of the sponge with coffee frosting and it was beautiful. I'm hoping I can find her go-to sponge cake recipe so I can try out different flavors. I wish I could take one of her classes while I was here in London, but the combination of lack of money and lack of time has taken over. Perhaps I'll just spend all day at the chocolate festival watching demonstrations to give my foodie brain a boost.

- Mollie