ABC - Eggnog Pound Cake with Crystal Rum Glaze

This is the last ABC recipe from Flo Braker's "Baking for all Occasions": Eggnog Pound Cake with Crystal Rum Glaze. This cake is on the cover of the book and looks absolutely lovely. When I read it had eggnog in it, I was intrigued. I've never had eggnog before so to the store I went, and I picked up a quart of Kemps Golden Eggnog. It smells great, very vanilla-y. I had a sip but didn't really like it much. I was hoping it would give a nice aroma to the cake and it did. For the Rum Glaze, I subbed orange juice for the rum which worked great!

I have really enjoyed baking from Flo's book and I have no doubt I will be going back to it and make several recipes again and again, as well as try new ones. If you haven't seen this book yet, definitely check it out. I love the variety of recipes in it, Flo's well-written instructions, and an ingredients list in both volume and weight measurements. A big thanks to Flo Braker for writing such a wonderful baking book!

 Starting in January 2012, we will start baking from The Weekend Baker by Abby Dodge. If you have this book, please feel free to join us by emailing me at HanaasKitchen [at] live [dot] com.


The batter is a simple butter-based cake batter. It's subtly spiced with some freshly grated nutmeg. If you've visited my blog before, you know I like spices in my cakes :o)

I made half the recipe and baked it in a small 6-cup Nordicware Bundt pan. After 38 minutes in the oven, my cake tester came out clean.

The recipe calls for dried currants in the cake. This is not something I normally have in my pantry. I do always have dried cranberries. Since currants are smaller than cranberries, I quickly chopped the dried cranberries to reduce their size. Even though I made half the recipe, I used the entire amount of the dried fruit. Instead of rum, I let them soak in a little orange juice. Yum!

Bon appetit!

Final thoughts/tips:

•  Although we're not big pound cake fans, we liked this cake. It has a great taste and the cranberries were great in it. I think I over baked the cake slightly. It was a bit dry. My husband still gave it an 8.5 out of 10 rating because it really had good flavor.
• I really liked the buttery-ness in this cake and vanilla flavor that the eggnog imparted. The cranberries were great. I think it would work really well with mini chocolate chips too.
• The orange-flavored crystal glaze (remember, I replaced the rum with orange juice) worked great with the cranberries. After the glaze dries on the cake, it crystallizes and forms this semi-hard layer on the cake. It gives the cake a nice crunch as well as extra sweetness. I liked it!
• If you'd like to try this cake, you can find the recipe online on COOKSTR.
• My changes to the recipe: used 1/4 tsp of salt in half the recipe (essentially doubling the amount of salt), substituted dried cranberries for the dried currants keeping the amount the same even with half the recipe. Finally, I replaced the rum with orange juice.
• Don't forget to check out the ABC blog roll.