Banana Rum Cake for Larry

New Year's here in the Valley was a really nice experience this year. I had a lot of fun on the 51st floor of the Cosmopolitan drinking wine and champagne, playing Cards Against Humanity (which, incidentally, is the best game every) and hanging out with friends.

My friends Larry and Justin were staying with me over New Years. They were in from California and were using my guest room while I'm between roommates. They both love food, which makes them the perfect guests.

I'm going to try something new this year. It isn't exactly a resolution, just a way of keeping me busy. I have a lot of cookbooks. I consider myself a collector and I love getting books for my birthday or Christmas. I'm going to go ahead and try and aim to make and adapt one recipe from a different book every week. This could be interesting for sure, as I've got several books that I've never made anything at all from.

So since it's the first week of the year, I asked Larry to give me a hand picking out a book. The happy result was the Joy the Baker Cookbook. After skimming through the recipes, we settled on one for Banana Rum Cake. When I went to Antigua I can back with a bottle of Antiguan rum and have been looking for a good excuse to open it.

I adapted this cake a fair bit from it's an original version. Instead of making it a layer cake with frosting, I went for a simple bundt cake.... a good excuse to break out new pans.

Banana Rum Cake
Adapted from Joy the Baker Cookbook

3 Cups Flour
2 1/4 Teaspoon Baking Powder
3/4 Teaspoon Baking Soda
3/4 Teaspoon Salt
1 1/2 Teaspoon Cinnamon
1/2 Teaspoon Nutmeg
3/4 Cup Butter, softened
1 3/4 Cup Dark Brown Sugar
3 Bananas, mashed
4 Tablespoon Rum
3 Eggs
1/2 Cup + 2 Tablespoons Buttermilk
1/2 Cup Walnuts, chopped
1/2 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract

Preheat the oven to 350F and grease a Bundt pan.

Cream together the butter and sugar, add in the eggs and vanilla. Add in the bananas, rum, cinnamon, nutmeg, buttermilk, salt, baking powder and baking soda until well combined. Fold in the flour and the walnuts. Pour into the pan and bake for fifty minutes. Turn the oven off and leave the cake in the oven for another 10 minutes. Check that the cake is cooked through. Let cool in the pan.

Cut into nice big chunks and eat at your desk at work after a busy couple of hours. Resolve to drink more tea.