spiced rum cake

Spiced Rum Cake
If you like the flavor of spiced rum, you will love this cake! Wow! It was great.... first time I have made it, but I'll be making it again for sure. The glaze is fantastic! 

Here's what you need for the cake:
1 box yellow cake mix
1 package instant vanilla pudding
4 eggs
1/2 C cold water
1/2 C cooking oil ( I always use Smart Balance or Canola oils)
1/2 C spiced rum

Here's what you do for the cake:
Mix the above ingredients and pour into a prepared bundt pan. If you have trouble getting a cake out of a bundt pan, please consider using Pam for Baking! It never fails!

Bake 325 degrees for 1 hour, checking it at about 50 minutes.
Cool slightly, then invert (with confidence!) on a serving platter.

Here's what you do for the glaze:
melt a stick of butter (no substitutions here)
add 1/4 C water and 1 C sugar
boil for 5 full minutes, stirring constantly
remove from heat and add 1/2 C rum 

You can see how dark and beautiful the glaze becomes once the rum has been added; it is very thin. Try not to eat too much of it at this point!

Gently poke the cake with a skewer or long fork on the top and sides. Drizzle the glaze over the top and sides of the cake with a spoon.
Be patient.
We also used a pastry brush to paint on the glaze. Keep being patient. Believe it or not, all that glaze did eventually soak into the cake - and it was worth the effort. 

Now here's the rest of the spiced rum cake story.... we ate about one third of it for dinner that evening and then all went our separate ways. The house was empty, except for our small, 14 pound dog.... and here you can guess the ending of this story.... yes, he ate almost the rest of this entire cake! He was pretty sick the next day, and even the following day.... just laid around and recovered from his feast.... I couldn't bring myself to post a picture of the destruction..... it wasn't pretty.