Banana Rum Bundt Cake

The recipe for this cake is out of Richard Sax’s Classic Home Desserts.  In this age of online recipe sites, you may not be inclined to purchase an actual cook book (I’m not) but you will want to make an exception for this book.  It’s a treasure and everything in it is absolutely wonderful.  Sax recommends a chocolate frosting for this cake, but I dislike frosting bundt cakes and was out of baking chocolate so I made a butter rum glaze instead.  It was a good decision.

Cake:

• 2 1/4 cups cake flour
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 3/4 generous cup very ripe mashed bananas (about 2)
• 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons sour cream or plain yogurt

 Glaze:

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup rum

1) Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Spray inside of 10 inch Bundt pan with baking spray.

2) Sift together dry ingredients.  Set aside.

3) Beat the butter with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until very light.  Gradually beat in the sugar and continue to beat until fluffy.  Beat in the eggs, one at a time; beat in the vanilla.

4) Lower the speed to very slow; add 1/2 the flour mixture in batches, alternating with the mashed bananas.  Add the remaining flour mixture on bathces, alternaing with the sour cream or yogurt.  Don’t over mix; finish folding the ingredients together by hand, with a few strokes of a large rubber spatula.  Pour the batter into the prepared pan.

5) Bake until a toothe pick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean, 50-55 minutes.  

6) Cool the cake in the pan on a wire rack for 10-15 minutes.  Invert onto a cooling rack to continue cooling.

7) While cake is cooling, combine 1/4 cup water, 1 cup sugar and a stick of butter in a small pan.  Cook over medium heat until boiling.  Reduce heat and boil for 5 minutes.  Remove from heat and stir in 1/2 cup rum.

8) Pour half of glaze into empty Bundt pan.  Put cake back in, upside down.  Pour about 1/2 of the rest of glaze over the exposed cake.  Wait a while and if all the glaze has been absorbed, pour on the rest.

9) When all glaze has been absorbed, invert cake onto serving plate.

French Coconut Pie

I found the original for this recipe here on the Tasty Kitchen site.  Based on reader feedback, I made a few minor changes.  I used this pie crust recipe (using vodka in place of the water) which makes 2 crusts so doubling the filling and making two pies is a no-brainer.

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• 3 whole Eggs Beaten
• 1 cup plus 1 Tablespoon sugar
• 1 cup flaked, sweetened coconut
• 1 stick butter, melted
• 1 Tablespoon white vinegar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon coconut flavoring
• 1 pinch Salt

• 1 whole 9” Uncooked Pie Shell

Mix filling ingredients and pour into pie shell.  Bake at 350 for one hour.  Let stand for one hour before slicing.  Would be great with a dollop of lightly sweetened whipped cream on top.