Eggnog Pound Cake

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Cake:
1 c. Butter, unsalted, room temperature
2 c. Sugar
3 Eggs, room temperature
3 c. Flour
2 tsp Baking powder
1/4 tsp Salt
1/8 tsp Nutmeg
1 c. Eggnog
1 tsp Vanilla extract
1 tbsp Orange zest
1 c. Dried cranberries
Dark rum, a few table spoons, enough to cover the cranberries

Glaze:
2 tbsp Orange juice
2 tbsp Dark rum
3/4 c. Sugar

Preheat the oven to 325°F. (Butter the bundt pan if it is not a silicone mold.)

Soak the cranberries in the rum for about 15 min.

Using an electric mixer, beat the butter until creamy, 30-45 seconds.

Add sugar and beat until fluffy, about 5 minutes.

Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt and nutmeg. Stir together with a fork.

Combine the eggnog and vanilla extract.

At low speed, add the dry ingredients and the eggnog to the butter mixture in 4 additions, alternating between wet and dry, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients.

Fold in the orange zest, the cranberries and the dark rum.

Pour the batter into bundt pan. Bake 60-70 minutes, turning the cake 180° half way through. Insert a skewer into the thickest part of the cake and it is done if it comes out clean.

Allow the cake to cool in the pan for 15 minutes.

For the glaze, stir together the orange juice, sugar and the rum in a bowl.

Place a cooling rack on a cookie sheet (to catch the glaze dripping from the cake). Invert the cake onto the rack and brush the glaze onto the surface of the cake. The cake should be completely cooled before serving.



My comments:

As always, Elise's recipe never fails to impress me. I pretty much followed her recipe to the dot and the pound cake turned out fabulous. I had to omit the currants/cranberries because my hubby doesn't like them. But I combined the dark rum with the eggnog because...well, hey, why not? :) Her recipe said the cake serves 20 people, but between my mom, hubby and I, we inhaled the cake by ourselves in 3 short days. A week later, my hubby asked me when I'm going to make the cake again. This recipe was that good.

I usually like to reduce the sugar content in any baking recipes I find. But I found the amount of sugar in this pound cake was perfect, especially with the glaze. I think the best part about this cake was the glaze. It smelled awesome and it tasted awesome. Let me put it this way: my hubby and I couldn't stop dipping our fingers into the glaze while we waited for the cake to bake. Thank goodness no one was eating this cake but us.


I don't own a bundt pan but it's high time I do. I decided to invest in a silicone baking pan because they are fantastic. Nothing sticks to it. The cake slipped out as soon as I inverted the pan. I have a silicone mini-muffin pan and it is the best thing ever!! No more scraping the side of the pan, no more greasing and no more papercups!! I love it. I don't recommend you throwing out all your baking pans and replace the entire set with silicone ones, but this would be nice to include on your Christmas gift list next year.



Recipe Update:  Because this cake turned out so well last year, I decided to make it again for my guests who stayed with us over the holidays.  I soaked some cranberries with the dark rum as instructed in Elise's original recipe and they were delicious!!  I have increased the cranberries to 1 cup in my recipe here because I thought the cranberries were that good.  Also, I didn't pay attention to the amount of rum the original recipe used and ended up using way more than it asked for.  But that was an excellent mistake because I could taste the rum in the cake and it made it even yummier!!  :P

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