Chocolate Chip Rum Bundt Cake

submitted by Holly Dina

Ingredients:

1 - box yellow cake mix (without pudding)
1 - 3.9 ounce box instant chocolate pudding
4 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla
1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon rum, divided*
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup sour cream
1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)
1 - 12 ounce package semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter (the recipe says unsalted, but I always use salted)
1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup water*

* The 1/4 cup rum and 1/4 cup water are used to make the glaze. I like to go heavier on the rum and lighter on the water - about 3/8 cup rum and 1/8 cup water.
 

Heat oven to 350 degrees and spray or butter a 12-cup bundt pan.
In a large bowl combine the cake mix and chocolate pudding mix. Mix with a whisk to break up lumps and until the mix looks fairly uniform. Set aside.

In a medium mixing bowl, beat the eggs, vanilla and 1 tablespoon rum.
Add oil until well-blended.

Next, mix in the sour cream until well-blended.

Add the egg/sour cream mixture to the dry ingredients and stir only until blended.

Add nuts and chocolate chips

Pour into prepared pan and bake for 50-60 minutes, until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean.

Put the cake, in the pan, on a cooling rack.

In a large saucepan, combine the butter, sugar, remaining rum and water (see note above about rum/water).

Place pan over medium heat and cook, stirring constantly, until the butter and sugar have dissolved

Poke a few holes in the cake with a toothpick or cake tester.

Pour the glaze over the cake while still in the pan (you make not use all of the glaze).

Allow to cool 5 minutes more and then turn the cake out of the pan.

Once the cake is cooled, dust the top with powdered sugar.
 

Holly's comments:

I add the dry ingredients to the wet a little at a time which, I believe, is less messy.

I usually leave out the nuts unless I am absolutely certain that the person for whom I am baking the cake likes nuts. No one ever seems to miss the nuts.

I NEVER bake it for more than 50 minutes. After 50 minutes, it seems to dry out very quickly, but that may just be my oven. As soon as the edges start to creep away from the side of the cake pan, and the toothpick comes out sort of clean, it's probably cooked enough.

I ALWAYS use all of the glaze!

You absolutely must turn it out of the pan 5-6 minutes after pouring the glaze over the cake or else the glaze literally "glues" the cake to the pan. Try and turn it out onto whatever you plan to serve the cake because it is so moist, sticky and heavy that it is very hard to move the thing without it falling apart. If any chocolate chips are left stuck to the side of the cake pan, just scoop them off with a finger while they are still warm and stick them back into the little hole in the cake from whence they came. If you do this while they are still warm, they usually melt right back into the warm cake and no one is the wiser.

I only dust the top right before serving, or delivering the cake. If you dust it today and plan on serving it tomorrow, instead of looking like a soft blanket of freshly fallen snow, the confectioner's sugar absorbs the rum over night and looks more like yellow snow - not very appetizing. For the purposes of bake sales, etc., I usually just skip the confectioner's sugar altogether. It really doesn't add anything in terms of improved flavor, it just looks pretty.

I never spray the cake pan and then let it sit. I always wait until just before I am about to pour the batter into the cake pan and then I take the pan outside and spray it copiously, until little puddles of cooking spray just begin to accumulate in the bottom of my pan. I have found that when I am less liberal with the cooking spray, I tend to lose chunks of cake when I turn it out of the pan at the end. Perhaps I just need to stop being so cheap and go buy a new bundt pan.

I have tried using SmartBalance and other butter alternatives, but they never work out and always ruin the glaze, so now I always use real butter.

This cake tastes best 2-3 days after being made. It needs time for the rum and chocolate to really gel and is not nearly as good the first 24 hours after baking as it is 36-48 hours later. Please let me know if you discover any improvements.

Enjoy!
 

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