Mom's Wicked Rum Cake

Ingredients - Cake:

• 1 package yellow cake mix
• 1 package instant vanilla pudding & pie filling
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 cup cold water
• 1/2 cup dark rum
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1/4 cup chopped walnuts
  

Ingredients - Glaze:

• 1 stick butter
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup dark rum

Cake

• Preheat oven to 325°
• Flour and grease a 10" tube pan
• Mix cake mix, pudding mix, water, rum, oil, and eggs until smooth
• Pour into pan and bake 1 hour
• Cool 25 minutes in pan

Glaze

• Melt butter in small saucepan
• Stir in water and sugar
• Boil 5 minutes, stirring constantly
• Remove from heat
• Add rum
• Use immediately
  

Assembly:

• Invert cake onto large plate
• Poke holes throughout cake using a long wooden skewer or long , thin chopstick
• Ladle hot rum glaze over top and sides slowly
• Brush glaze on sides with pastry brush
• Sprinkle cake with chopped nots
• Cover in foil, seal well, and let sit for 1-2 days. It gets better with time!

Notes:

• Be sure to make the glaze up just before applying to cake
• Glaze will foam up a bit when you add the rum, so be careful
• The resulting cake is NOT non-alcoholic!
• This is really my mother's recipe - she may have gotten somewhere else and tweaked it a bit (more rum!) but it's now our family tradition to make a bunch for friends.
  

My Musical Presence

Feel free to listen or purchase my music, solo acoustic or with The Whompers. You can hear clips below and purchase the songs. You can hear full songs on my iLike/Facebook pages. You can also check out my various online music pages listed below (some of these are a bit redundant). If you find yourself in Saranac Lake, I'm playing at the First United Methodist Church every Sunday morning at 8:30 AM (Praise Service) and every Wednesday night at 5 PM (Free Coffee House w/Soup).

• Cedar Eden Music - photos, music, CD info
  
• MySpace Artist Page
  
• iLike Artist Page - stream complete songs online
  
• Facebook Artist Page

The beauty of wood heat

There is a skill in selecting just the right piece of dry wood for splitting.
And there is a skill in splitting that piece of wood down into kindling, popping the pieces apart with a well-placed tap.
There is a joy in the ring of dry kindling as it pops free of the log and clatters to the floor.
And there is a joy in creating a fire from nothing.
There is a satisfaction in the heat of the stove as the fire builds.

But the real beauty of a woodstove fire is the way it heats the whole house, until the entire structure is one giant source of radiant heat,
and you bask wrapped in 74 degrees while snow and ice sorround your humble abode.

Thought on thermometers

Never have more than one thermometer.
The number of outside temperature readings is directly proportional to the number of thermometers one has.
Which is to say, if you have three thermometers,
you get three different answers.

First Real Snow

First real snow,
big, fat and heavy.
Chickadees, they sing their happy tune.
White coated trees,
holding up their load,
wonder if a snowman follows soon.

Indian Summer, Barkeater Style

A rare warm fall day.
The sound of leaves falling through trees like a gentle rain.
Ladybugs abound, seeking a safe haven to congregate for winter.
And the air is filled with those small waxy flies that always seem to sense those last warm days of the year.

Fog

The fog lifts
and I feel … what?
Sunshine?
No.
Panic!

10/12/07 • 11:36 am

There is a sharpness to the damp breeze
as it rustles through the painted leaves.
Shades of brown,
they cover the ground,
just as the season decrees.

Mouse Trap

It is Fall in the Adirondacks.
The mice are looking to settle in.
I set & reset the mouse trap,
watch late night movies,
and wait for the next muffled snap.

The house is too old
to plug all the holes
and keep the mice out.
So I set & reset the traps,
and settle into this grim vigil.

Awaken to Fall

I walked out this morning, and,
New Englander that I am,
was taken by the unmistakable odor of Autumn.

Looking around,
the pines are preparing to throw their old needles,
the cattails are fluffing up with seed,
and the maples are showing their first blush of color.

A change of seasons is upon us.

Singing

God respects me when I work, but loves me I sing.

Rabindranath Tagore(1861-1941)
Indian Poet,Playwright, Essayist,
won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913
Click on image for more of his quotes

More White Mountain Memories