Bacardi Rum: Rum Cake

For recipe #4, we're moving on to dessert.  For some reason this rum cake has become a sort of holiday item, so I figured I might as well make one and see how it went.  While I don't normally use cake mixes, with the amount of other items on my list, I decided to stop being so picky and gatekeeping cake baking.  And you know what?  It's delicious.  And pretty easy to pull together.  It's fantastically moist, and not so overwhelming after all that other rich food.

Note:  I misread the recipe and used the 4 eggs and ½ cup oil it recommended for a regular cake mix (without pudding/super moist), and it was still delicious.  Use what you feel is right.

Rum Cake
From an old Bacardi Rum advertisement

Cake:
1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts
1 (15¼-ounce) package super moist yellow cake mix (with pudding)
3 large eggs
½ cup cold water
⅓ cup canola oil
½ cup Bacardi dark rum

Glaze:
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
¼ cup water
1 cup granulated sugar
½ cup Bacardi dark rum

Preheat oven to 325°F. Grease and flour a 10-inch tube pan or a 12-cup Bundt pan.

Sprinkle nuts over bottom of pan. Mix all cake ingredients together.  Pour batter over nuts. Bake 1 hour. Cool.

Invert cake on serving plate. Prick top. Spoon and brush glaze evenly over top and sides. Allow cake to absorb glaze. Repeat until glaze is used up.

To make glaze:

Melt butter in saucepan. Stir in water and sugar. Boil 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Stir in rum.