Stilettos, Stoli & Scribbles ~ Served With A Twist

George wants cake

Being an adult means we get to make our own holiday traditions, right?

It’s not my Grandmother’s plum pudding, but since my mother and her husband are coming to my house for Christmas this year, I wanted to make an Eggnog Cake.The first (and only other) time I made this cake was the last time that my mother came to Boston for the holiday. It was so long ago that Williams-Sonoma no longer sells the”Festive Party” Bundt pan in which it was baked. Which makes a certain amount of sense, since it was an exclusive made to commemorate Nordic Ware’s 50th anniversary. Hmmm…maybe it’s a collector’s item. (Nah. I finally found it on eBay. Where else?)

Luckily, I found my copy of the recipe (which first appeared the W-S catalog that year). Of course I still had it. I never throw anything away (except under duress and the fear of someday qualifying for my own show on TLC).

Here’s the recipe (which only sounds difficult):

Glaze:
2 Tbs Dark Rum*
2 Tbs water
1/4 c granulated sugar*

Have ingredients at room temperature.
In a small bowl soak dried currants in rum for 15 minutes.
Adjust rack in lower third of oven, preheat to 325 degrees (or 350 if pan doesn’t have dark finish)
-Butter and flour 9 1/2 in. diameter Festive Cake Pan.
-Sift together flour, baking powder, salt and nutmeg.
-With electric mixer on medium, beat together butter until creamy 30-45 sec. Add sugar and beat until light and fluffy, about 5 min.; scrape bowl occasionally. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
-At very low speed, add dry ingredients to butter mixture in 4 stages, alternating with eggnog (begin and end with dry ingredients); scrape bowl occasionally.
-Gently fold in dried currants and any remaining rum.
-Spoon batter into pan; spread evenly
-Bake 55-65 min. or until cake springs back when lightly touched in center and pulls away from sides of pan.
-Cool upright in pan on rack for 10 min.  Prepare glaze.
-Invert cake onto rack over sheet of waxed paper – remove pan. With pastry brush, brush surface of cake with glaze.  Cool completely before serving.

(Supposedly) serves 20 (very tiny people- ha!)

Here’s the picture of how it’s supposed to look.

Mine, however, despite the fact that I followed instructions, it looked perfect and smelled heavenly, absolutely refused to come out of the pan.

So, since I had planned to serve it with Eggnog Ice Cream anyway, we’re just going to have hunks of cake, instead of beautiful and delicate slices. This cake is rich, moist and delicious. I’ll just close my eyes when I eat it.

Pan Cake

Pan Cake 2

Next time I’ll make it with my Dad’s Lethal Nog. He hasn’t done it in years, but he used to save the last drams of liquor from any bottles emptied throughout the year to make his Christmas nog. Trust me, it was as lethal as it was yummy and if the cake doesn’t turn out again, I’ll be too drunk to care.

Merry Christmas from Stilettos, Stoli and Scribbles:

Georges, George and of course that ham Georgito wanted to get into the act as well:

Your move, Shelf-SITTING Elves!

Feliz Navidad!

*A few notes:
1.I’ll make the glaze with Confectioner’s sugar and drizzle, rather than brush.

2.I did not do it this time (since I figured the pan was already “tainted”), but this could easily be adapted to be made Gluten Free.

3. I used BOURBON instead of dark rum.  (I got a bottle of Knob Creek in the office Christmas grab. Since it’s going in the eggnog that I’ll be drinking, I figured why not put it in the cake?)