Quick Rum Cake for Payne's Pantry by Anne Payne

I never had rum cake, rum balls, or anything cooked with alcohol in it until I went to college. My parents just did not cook with it or have it around. Now, my dad smoked about 3 packs of cigarettes per day, so I do not

have to tell you that he died when he had just turned 67 from, of course, health complications resulting from those cancer sticks. In college and after, I developed an interest in cooking, so I started out with fruit cake,initially, adding alcohol to it to moisten and preserve it better.

And, no, I did NOT sample the alcohol and still do not. I simply use it for cooking purposes. However, I recently discovered on the Internet's Goggle that alcohol does NOT completely cook out of food as I previously believed, but shrinks considerably.

According to Google, "Wine, spirits, and beer are used in cooking to enhance the flavors and aromas of dishes.

After cooking for an hour, only about 25 percent of the alcohol content will still be there, but after cooking 2.5hours, the alcohol content is said to shrink to a mere five percent." Goggle continues by stating, "But, when the alcohol is added to a boiling liquid and then removed from the heat, 85 percent of the alcohol remains." Geez, Louise! Dear Gussie! Mom and Dad, please understand up in Heaven! I am just cooking with alcohol to create flavorful food.

Anyway, rum extract certainly can be substituted for the rum in dishes such as Rum Cake, if desired.

I am also supplying you with a Rum Cake recipe from scratch using rum extract.

NON-ALCOHOLIC RUM CAKE FROM SCRATCH WITH RUM EXTRACT by Mrs. Betty Jo Montgomery, also from the West Heritage Cookbook, the same cookbook from which Ms. Helen Kudelka's recipe came.

Equipment needed:1 tube or Bundt pan (greased and floured or sprayed with Baker's Choice)

Measuring cup

Measuring spoons

Mixing bowl

Mixing spoons

Sifter

Electric hand-held mixer

Ingredients:1/4 lb. butter

1/2 cup shortening

2 cups sugar

4 eggs

3 cups flour

Pinch of salt

1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. soda

1 tsp. vanilla

1 tsp. rum extract

1 cup buttermilk

Directions: Cream shortening, butter, and sugar. Add eggs, one at a time. Beat well with electric hand mixer. Sift dry ingredients and add alternately with buttermilk. Beat with mixer again. Add vanilla and blend well.Pour in greased floured 10 inch tube pan and bake at 325 degrees for one hour.

NON-ALCOHOLIC GLAZE TO COVER NON-ALCOHOLIC CAKE by Mrs. Betty Jo MontgomeryEquipment needed:

Saucepan

Measuring cup

Measuring spoons

Wooden spoon for stirring glaze

Ingredients: 2 sticks butter

1 cup sugar

4 tsp. rum extract

Directions: Melt the 2 sticks of butter and 1 cup sugar over low heat in saucepan. Remove from heat and add the rum extract. After removing Non-Alcoholic Cake from 325 degree oven, pour glaze over cake, leaving in pan about2 hours before removing to cake plate. Oh, yeah!

Quick Rum Cake by Helen Kudelka from West Heritage Cookbook, to honor the people of West, TX during 1986 Texas Sesquicentennial, for Payne's Pantry by Anne Payne

Equipment needed:

Tube or Bundt pan (sprayed with Baker's Choice or greased with butter and dusted with flour)

Measuring spoons

Mixing bowl

Electric hand-held mixer

2 large cooking spoons to help stir dry mixture and spoon batter in pan

Rum Cake Ingredients:1 cup finely chopped pecans

1 pkg. yellow cake mix1 small pkg vanilla instant pudding

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup cooking oil

1/2 cup rum

4 eggs.

Directions for Rum Cake:Preheat oven to 350 degree.

Flour and grease a floured tube or Bundt pan. (Ex: Baker's Choice)

Sprinkle the finely chopped pecans in the bottom of pan. Mix together the dry cake mix, the dry pudding mix, water, oil, and rum. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, with an electric mixer. Then, pour batterinto pan over the pecans and bake for one hour at 350 degrees. Let cool 25 minutes. Then, pour rum sauce over cake. See rum sauce recipe next.

Rum Cake Sauce ingredients:

1/2 stick butter

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup water

1/4 cup rum

Directions for Rum Cake Sauce:

While Rum Cake is baking, boil butter, sugar, water, and rum together in saucepan. Pour sauce over top of cake after it has cooled for 25 minutes in pan. Let cake cool completely before removing from pan.

Oh, it is soooo good. A special thank you to Ms. Helen Kudelka of West, Texas, for recipe.