Rum Cake

I’m obsessed with Tortuga Rum cakes. This Caribbean style sponge cake is made by the Tortuga Rum Company is commonly sold in cute hexagonal shaped boxes in many of the Caribbean Islands for tourists to buy as souvenirs. It’s ideal for slicing up and sharing with friends or office mates while you reminisce about your holiday 😁.

This post may contain affiliate links. I may earn a small commission on any purchases made via these links at no additional cost to you. You can read my full disclaimer here.

The white sponge is light and is soaked in rum syrup so it is super moist. It’s delicious with a scoop of ice cream. I recently found myself craving this cake so I decided to have a go at making my own version, here’s my recipe.

---

Never miss a RECIPE!

Subscribe below to receive e-mail updates:

---

Rum Cake Recipe

Serves: 6-8

Preparation Time: 20 minutes

Baking Time: 45 minutes

INGREDIENTS

For the cake:

• 160 g unsalted butter melted (cooled)
• 60 ml dark rum
• 4 medium eggs
• 160 g caster sugar
• 160 g self raising flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 0.5 tsp salt

• 30 ml rum (additional for pouring)

For the syrup:

• 100 g sugar
• 60 ml water
• 60 ml dark rum
• 0.5 tsp vanilla essence

METHOD

1. Pre-heat oven to 170 °C fan (190 °C conventional oven).
2. Grease and line 18 cm round loose bottomed cake tin with baking paper. Brush the baking paper lightly with some additional melted butter. I love my MasterClass Non-Stick Loose Base Cake Tin. I got two of these earlier on in the year and they have served me really well so far. These high quality tins are deep with a thick heavy base. The non-stick coating means they wash really well and still look like new after over a dozen baking projects. Click here for more details on the tin.
3. Mix the cooled melted butter and the rum together and set aside.
4. Mix the flour, baking powder and salt together and set aside.
5. Whisk the eggs and sugar together with a hand mixer for around 7-10 minutes, until the mixture has doubled in size and it is stiff.
6. Fold in the rum-butter mixture with a spatula.
7. Sift in the flour, baking powder and salt a quarter at a time and lightly fold into the batter after each addition.
8. Pour into the baking tin and bake for 45-50 minutes until the cake starts to come away from the sides and a skewer poked into the centre of the cake comes out clean.
9. In the meantime make the rum syrup by adding all the syrup ingredients to a small saucepan. Simmer and stir until it has thickened.
10. Remove the cake from the oven and leave to cool for a few minutes before removing it from the tin and peeling off the baking paper.
11. Place on a baking rack and little by little pour the rum all over the top of the cake giving it time to sink in before each additional pour.
12. Leave for 20-30 minutes then pour over half the rum syrup. After another 20-30 minutes of soaking time pour over the remaining syrup.

NOTES

• Once the cake has cooled dust with sifted icing sugar and decorate with grated orange zest and orange slices. Orange works really well with the rum flavour.
• This is delicious on it’s own, but I love to eat this with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
• I really hope you will give my recipe a try, but if you’re after the real Tortuga Rum Cake you can click here to order one.