Halloween Rum Cake

Our finished haunted castle

 This Halloween we made a Halloween Haunted Castle Rum Cake. I have several festive Bundt pans, and I am always looking for a reason to use them. I also am always looking for a reason to get more. I love them. 
I revised my standard rum cake this time. I wanted a lighter cake so I used a white cake mix and it did the trick. I also substituted melted butter for the oil and milk for the water. Finally, I wanted a stone-looking foundation to my castle, so I added the walnuts last instead of first.

Lighter Rum Cake

1 16.25 oz. (461g) Box of White Cake Mix
1  1 3/4 oz. (50 g) Box of Instant Vanilla Pudding Mix
1/2 Cup (120 ml) of Milk
1/2 Cup (115 g) of Butter, Melted and Cooled
1/2 Cup (120 ml) of Rum
4 Large Eggs
1 Cup (114 g) of Walnuts, Toasted and Finely Chopped

Preheat the oven to 325F/162C/Gas Mark 3. Prepare Bundt pan by greasing and flouring the pan.

The hardest part is preparing the pan

In a mixing bowl combine all of the ingredients except the eggs. Mix well. Add the eggs one at a time. Beat on medium speed for 3 minutes, scraping the bowl as needed.

A nice smooth batter

Pour the batter into the prepared Bundt pan. Top with the walnuts.

Ready for the oven

Bake for 45 minutes to an hour. The cake is done when a tooth pick insert into the center of the cake comes out clean. Let the cake cool in the pan for about 10 minutes.
Run a butter knife around the edges and invert onto a cake plate. With a skewer poke holes in the cake so the glaze can seep throughout the cake.

Rum Glaze

1/4 Cup (55 g) of Butter
1/8 Cup  (30 ml) of Water
1/2 Cup (100 g) of Sugar
1/4 Cup (60 ml) of Rum

I halved the normal amount of the glaze for the Halloween cake. Normally, I would double this recipe. Heat butter and water over medium heat. Once butter is melted, add sugar and bring to a boil. Boil for 3 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and carefully add the rum. Be careful, the mixture will produce a lot of stream.

The glaze

Pour the rummy goodness over the cake.

The castle before we added the decorations

Allow cake to cool completely and decorate. The decorating is the best part. We filled the center of the castle with mini marshmallows and dyed the marshmallows red. Then we had gummy worms coming out of the marshmallows. We turned large marshmallows into ghosts and used toothpicks to attach the ghosts to the castle. We stuck root beer barrels and mini Oreo cookies to the cookie sheet around the castle. Finally, we used orange and black icing on the turrets, doors, and windows. 

The bottom line: Will I make this again? Yes, but not until spring. The rum cake made with a yellow cake mix or the chocolate rum cake is more for cold winter days.