Have a rum cake

This is a recipe for the Dan Mudd Rum Cake, one of my all-time favorite desserts, named after a former colleague from the Corpus Christi Caller-Times.

I made one just this evening. It gets better and better every year.

Enjoy.

The cake:
– 1 cup pecans, halved or coarsely chopped
– 1 package of yellow cake mix, any brand but not a pudding mix
– 1 package of instant vanilla pudding mix
– 4 medium or large eggs (not extra-large or jumbo)
– 1/4 cup cold water
– 1/2 cup vegetable oil
– 1/2 cup of rum (any kind of rum, but do not use a Jamaican-type of rum)

Directions
– Preheat oven to 325F degrees
– Grease and flour 10-inch tube (angel-food type) pan
– Sprinkle nuts over bottom of pan
– Mix all cake ingredients
– Pour batter over nuts
– Bake about one hour
– Cool for about 30 minutes
– Make glaze while cake is cooling
– Prick deeply all over the top of the cake with a toothpick or thin knife
– Drizzle and smooth glaze evenly over top and sides, allowing glaze to soak into cake
– Keep spooning the glaze over cake until all glaze has been absorbed
– After all has cooled at room temperature, run knife along edge of cake and along center tube, and remove cake from pan

The glaze (make while cake is cooling)
– 1/2 cup of butter or 1/2 cup stick oleo (do not use tub or watered-down soft spread)
– 1/4 cup of water
– 1 cup of sugar
– 1/4 cup of rum

Directions
– Melt butter or oleo in a medium-sized saucepan
– Stir in water and sugar
– Boil for five minutes, stirring constantly
– Remove from heat and cool slightly
– Stir in rum slowly
– While warm, spoon over cake