Rum Drenched Vanilla Cakes -- Tuesdays with Dorie

Time for Tuesdays with Dorie! Today's treat, Rum Drenched Vanilla Cakes, was picked for us to try by Wendy of Pink Stripes -- thank you, Wendy! I was really excited to get back in the swing of baking with these cakes. These are a treat that really caught my eye in Dorie's book and probably a recipe I would have picked to bake even if they weren't a TWD pick. They just sound so delicious.

The recipe uses two loaf pans and I decided to switch things up a bit by using a silicone mini bundt-ish pan for most of the batter and a mini loaf pan for the remainder.

I thought the mini cakes would be so cute, but after baking, I think this cake is actually prettier as a loaf cake.

Either way, they were delicious! I used vanilla bean paste and doubled the amount, since vanilla is one of my favorite flavors. As for the rum, I used spiced instead of dark, since we only had spiced or light available in our liquor cabinet.

Two out of three kids enjoyed these (sans glaze) and picky husband said they were pretty good. I would have loved to serve these with some sugared strawberries, mmm! Maybe next time...

Raisin Swirl Bread -- Tuesdays with Dorie

Time for Tuesdays with Dorie! I can't believe it's almost been a month since I posted, I've been baking along, but had some family medical issues to deal with. I'm exicted to get back into the swing of things and missed participating.

Thank you to Susan of Food.Baby, who picked Dorie's delicious Raisin Swirl Bread for us to bake this week. I love making yeasted breads, especially those with a little sweet mixed in. This bread had a secret ingredient that I've never used in a swirl bread, cocoa powder -- mixed right in with the cinnamon and sugar swirl! I loved it and now it has me thinking of other 'secret ingredients' to use in a swirl bread, like espresso powder, mmm!

Here is the bread ready for the oven!

Unfortunately I jumped the gun and cut this beautiful bread way too early so the slices weren't as pretty as they could have been. Still every bit as delicious thought, and since this was just for a family breakfast it really didn't matter. If I were to have this at a brunch I would definitely give it a few hours to cool so the slices were prettier.


Now how did this happen? Over eager children trying to find all the raisins -- which they love and wanted to eat seperately -- before finishing the bread, ha! Don't worry, none of it went to waste. This was a huge hit with the kids and the husband liked it as well. Will be making it again for sure :)