Rum Cake with Toasted Pecans
1 cup softened butter (not melted)
1 ½ cups sugar
½ cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1 cup chopped toasted pecans (may substitute with walnuts or almonds)
3 cups plain flour
1 box instant vanilla pudding
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp soda
½ tsp salt
½ cup rum (I used Calico Jack’s pineapple & coconut flavor, but plain rum will do!)
1 tsp butter & nut flavoring (you may also use coconut or rum flavoring in the place of this, if you would like)
Ingredients for the glaze:
6 tablespoons melted butter
2/3 cup powdered sugar
1/8 cup rum
1/8 cup water
1 tsp vanilla
Toast the pecans on a cookie sheet at 350 degrees for about 5 minutes. Nuts burn easily, so keep an eye on them. Remove from oven and set aside.
Combine the flour, vanilla pudding, soda, salt, baking powder and use a whisk to combine.
In a separate bowl, use an electric mixer to combine the butter, oil, and sugar until creamy. Add eggs one at a time. Add rum, water, vanilla flavoring, butter and nut flavoring. Gradually add the dry ingredients and mix until completely blended.
Sprinkle half of the nuts into the bottom of a greased bundt cake pan.
Pour the batter on top of the nuts.
Sprinkle the other half of the nuts on top of the batter.
Bake on 350 degrees until a toothpick comes out clean. (about 45 minutes-1 hour)
Combine glaze ingredients and pour over warm cake while it is still in the pan.
Allow the cake to sit for about twenty minutes before removing from the pan. This allows the glaze to soak into the cake.