Rum-Drenched Vanilla Cakes (TWD)

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Ok, now on to the our weekly installment of Tuesdays with Dorie (TWD). This week's recipe was chosen by Wendy of Pink Stripes: Rum-Drenched Vanilla Cakes. I love a good rum cake. The only recipes I've tried so far involve using a box of yellow cake mix, though. Nothing wrong with using a boxed cake mix, but of course when you make something from scratch, it's better. So I was really looking forward to trying this recipe.

Well, funny story about this cake. I had to make it in my mom's kitchen since we are in California right now. So I wasn't accustomed to using her oven yet. I wasn't paying very much attention when I put the loaf pan in, and part way through the baking I realized that the loaf didn't have room to rise because the oven rack above it was too close to it. Of course by then the top already had a small indentation in it. Still, I took the loaf out, moved the oven rack out of the way, and then put the loaf pan back in the oven and continued baking it. When I went to take it out at the end, it had completely deflated and sunken in the middle! (You can't tell from the pictures, but that's because I photographed the cake upside down and didn't cut too far into it.) Not only that, but I think I left it in for a little too long so the outside was a little more brown than I would have liked.


The only explanation for the sunken cake that I could come up with was that I probably jostled the cake too much when I was adjusting the oven rack, causing the cake to deflate. Well, the next day I went to bake something else and I asked my mom where she kept the baking soda in the pantry. She directed me to the shelf in the pantry where I proceeded to see two canisters side by side - one was baking powder and the other was baking soda. It was at that very moment that I realized what had happened!! I had used baking soda instead of powder in this recipe by mistake! See, the thing is that my mom picked up some baking supplies for me right before I made this.  So, when she unloaded all the groceries on the counter, I just grabbed the container and used it.  I have only ever seen baking soda in a box. I had never seen it in a canister before. When I was making this cake the canister was already sitting right there on the counter and I just assumed it was baking powder because of the container. I didn't even bother reading the label! Ha ha... so that explained why my cake didn't quite come out the way I thought it would.  The cake actually tasted pretty good, though I could tell the texture was a little off.  Nonetheless, it's good to know that you can still get a fairly decent cake if you don't have any baking powder at home and want to make this ;)

Thanks Wendy, for hosting this week.  The cake was delicious, even though I goofed it up; although I would probably add more rum to the syrup next time, as the rum flavor was very hard to distinguish.  If you would like the recipe, you can find it here. Make sure you check out the TWD Blogroll, to see how everyone else enjoyed this moist, delicious treat!

* Recipes notes:
- I would recommend either doubling the amount of rum in the syrup or perhaps just making a double batch of syrup for these cakes if you want to taste the rum. If you are wanting some very subtle, then make the recipe as is.
- For tips from other TWD bakers, click here.