Rum Cake
Christmas is around the corner and I’m sure all of you are coming together to throw a party and celebrate and spread festive cheer, I know I am. Christmas is such a great opportunity to spend time with family and your friends. Everyone’s in high spirits and gifting season is also around the corner.
You may scratch your head as to what kind of dishes you can whip up to impress your guests. How do you keep it simple but impressive? Some ideas for great dishes that are sure to spread the Christmas cheer amongst your loved ones.
Why I love this cake?:
- Unique – This delicious cake is a little unique and everyone always loves it! It’s basically a homemade yellow cake with a hint of rum flavor, and amazing glaze on top.
- Rum Cake Glaze – We pour a delicious rum glaze over the top of the cake when it’s hot from the oven, which makes it extra moist and yummy inside and adds a delicious glaze layer to the outside.
- Homemade – Made From Scratch and tastes so much better than anything you can buy!
How to Make Rum Cake:
Mix Wet Ingredients: Whisk milk, sour cream, and rum together in a liquid measuring cup and let come to room temperature.
Cream butter and sugar: Whip butter then add granulated sugar. Mix in vanilla then add eggs and egg yolks, one at a time, mixing just until combined.
Combine Dry Ingredients: Stir cake flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
Alternate adding milk and flour mixtures to batter. Add ⅓ of the dry ingredients to the batter and mix just until combined. Add ½ of the milk/sour cream mixture and mix. Repeat until dry ingredients and milk/sour cream mixture are incorporated.
Bake: Grease and flour Bundt pan. I use shortening, and make sure every crevice of the pan is coated! Pour batter evenly into the pan and bake at 350 degrees F for about 50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, or with few crumbs.
Make Glaze: While cake is baking, make the glaze sauce. Add sauce ingredients to a saucepan over medium heat. Stir well until butter has melted and mixture is smooth. Bring mixture to a boil, stirring, and boil for 2 minutes.
Add Glaze: Cool cake in pan for at least 15 minutes before gently inverting it. (I like to remove the cake first, to make sure it comes out easily). Then wipe the pan clean and put the cake back in it. Poke holes all over the cake and gently pour most of the glaze over the cake, reserving just a little.
Serve: Allow cake to soak up glaze and then invert it onto a plate or serving platter. Spoon remaining glaze on top.
To bake this cake, I use Wonderchef Crimson Edge OTG. That’s my usual go-to since this affordable OTG packs quite a punch. Crimson Edge combines style with cutting edge technology, and with a design that lends to its appliances a superior quality. Apart from this cake, this OTG can be used to bake soft breads and delicious cakes, toast oil-free papads and rotis, grill vegetables and much more. You won’t have to worry about always keeping an eye on this OTG as it features an auto-power off mode. When the cooking process is over it switches off automatically and alerts you with a bell to avoid food from over-cooking and also saves on electricity. I love the sleek design of the Wonderchef OTG which is built using long-lasting metal materials along with a heavy-duty coil and thermostat.
Enjoy your rum cake with friends and family!
Paneer Makhani
My second favourite dish is paneer makhani in the Wonderchef Nutri Pot. Nutri-Pot makes your everyday cooking extremely convenient. Anyone can cook with Nutri-Pot and get perfect results every time. Whether you are a pro or a beginner in the world of cooking, Nutri-Pot with its one touch cooking is your perfect kitchen partner. Put the ingredients in, select a specific cooking function and you can leave the kitchen, let the Nutri-Pot do the rest while you come back to evenly cooked flavor packed food. There is a magic in your Nutri-Pot & we call it the Delay Timer. You can program your Nutri-Pot to start cooking as per your convenience so that food is ready right on time and stays warm too, saving you the hassles of re-heating the food just before serving. You can set the timer anywhere between 30 min to 24 hours.
Paneer: There’s nothing quite like paneer,a tasty pressed Indian cottage cheese. I used freshly made paneer (it’s really easy and cheap to make paneer yourself, although mine was a little crumbly), but packaged paneer is fine as well. If you can’t get a hold of paneer, halloumi or panel cheese is a good substitute. For vegans, you can use extra-firm tofu that has been cubed and baked at 400ºF (200ºC) for 8-10 minutes until the outsides are slightly browned and firmer (but not crunchy) and add with the crushed tomatoes before pressure cooking in the Instant Pot.
Kasuri methi: This is optional as it can be a little trickier to find (although they do have it on Amazon) but if you can, don’t skip it because these dried fenugreek leaves really give curries that restaurant-style taste.
Cayenne: You can use ground cayenne pepper or any red chili powder such as Kashmiri chili powder (just don’t use the mixed spice chili-style powder which is used for making chili).
Water: Don’t skip it, it helps the sauce not to stick to the pot or burn.
Ginger: Use only fresh ginger, not ground dry ginger.
Turmeric: Don’t omit this.
Cumin: Don’t omit this.
Garam masala: Don’t omit this. If you can’t find it or don’t have a good one, it’s easy to make your own.
You can also add a cup of frozen green peas along with the crushed tomatoes, water, and spices for a quick matar paneer! The best part is that along with the Nutri-Put comes a recipe book by Sanjeev Kapoor.
Cheese Platter
I use Wonderchef Caesar Folding Grill pan to grill different kinds of cheeses for a fun charcuterie board. Some good cheeses to grill are Halloumi, Queso Panela, Provolone, Mozzarella, Kasseri. You can serve the cheese with fruits, fig and strawberry jam and cold cuts for starters.
Author: Alina Gufran, writer and film-maker, who loves the outdoors and reading.
No Comments