Mini Apple Spice Rum Cakes

This is the perfect fall dessert to make! Apple Spice Mini Rum Cakes are a twist on pound cake, made with fall spices like cloves, ginger and allspice, spiced rum and crisp apples. Serve it with a homemade spiced rum caramel sauce and top with a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream.

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This blog post was originally written as a guest post for my sweet friend Erin from The Speckled Palate. You can find the original here. 

I'll take any excuse to bake a fun treat! When fall rolls around, I'm looking for new ways to incorporate fall flavors. This season we experimented with making our own pumpkin spice lattes and cardamom lattes.

Apple desserts are another classic fall flavor that I'm always up for, whether it's apple pie bars or apple spice cupcakes!

A few years back my husband suggested we find a way to use spiced rum in an apple dessert and these rum cakes were born out of that idea!

Apple Spice Rum Cake Recipe

His family has a pound cake recipe that has been in the family for over 100 years. We love family recipes around here (Sausage Stuffing, Pecan Pie and Stained Glass Windows are a few other favorites).

That pound cake and chocolate chip cookies have been my husband's complete weakness when it comes to dessert! So when he brought up the idea of using the spiced rum, I immediately thought of doing a spiced rum pound cake.

Ingredients

Rum cakes are simply just cakes with rum in them! To make them you'll need:

• melted butter: you can use either unsalted or salted butter for this recipe
• cane sugar: regular cane sugar is best for this recipe, but you could probably substitute brown sugar as well
• vanilla extract
• eggs
• all-purpose flour
• baking soda
• fall spices: ground allspice, ground ginger, ground cloves
• spiced rum
• greek yogurt
• Granny Smith apples: these are preferred for baking because they are tart and have less water content which makes them have that perfect texture for baked goods.

Even if you aren't one to drink a dark & stormy cocktail, these rum cakes are a different ball game and even though I wouldn't prefer a spiced rum cocktail, it's perfect in this cake!

How to Make Apple Spice Rum Cakes

1. Preheat oven to 325ºF. Grease a mini bundt pan (also called a bundtlette pan) and set aside.
2. In a mixing bowl , mix together the melted butter with the sugar and vanilla with a spatula. Add in the eggs and mix together.
3. Whisk in flour, baking soda, and spices to bowl and combine until you can just see small streaks of flour.
4. Add in the spiced rum, yogurt and apple pieces until mixed completely. If your batter looks watery, keep mixing gently until the batter is fully incorporated.
5. Pour batter into mini bundt pan openings, about ⅔ of the way full so each spot is evenly full.
6. Bake for 27 minutes or until a toothpick comes out with just a bit of cake on it.

Getting the cakes out of the pan
Allow cakes to cool in pan for 3-5 minutes. Then carefully flip pan over a wire cooling rack. Leave upside down for 5-10 minutes. At that point cakes should fall right out when you lift the pan up. If not, give the pan a little shake and they'll fall out onto the rack.

These cakes on their own are something special, but adding homemade caramel to this recipe takes it to another level.

Oh, caramel sauce. Easily my favorite sauce choice for desserts! This homemade spiced rum caramel sauce is super easy to make. If you've never made homemade caramel before, don't be nervous. It's really so easy to make, I promise.

Homemade caramel sauce

Homemade caramel is made simply by cooking sugar on the stove on medium heat, stirring constantly, until the sugar begins to clump up and then melt. As you continue stirring, the sugar will being to change color to an amber color.

After the sugar has all melted, remove pan from heat, stir in butter until melted, then add heavy cream. After it is all combined add to stove again and cook on low to medium heat for 3-4 minutes, allowing the caramel to bubble and thicken.

Another fall favorite? These Pumpkin Spice Donuts are droolworthy!

One of the greatest parts about this recipe is that the rum is baked out of the cakes but you still get the flavor so it's kid friendly (minus the caramel sauce of course - just skip the booze if you're serving that one to kids).

Speaking of pouring some caramel sauce on top, how else can you eat this apple spiced rum cake? Well, pretty much any way you please.

Eat it cold out of the fridge, warm it up and top with ice cream or whipped cream, make it feel healthy-ish with a scoop of plain Greek yogurt. No matter how you choose to eat it, it's gonna be delish, I promise.

Serving Suggestions

If you're hosting a brunch or maybe a fall baby shower, consider serving these cakes as dessert but pair it with some other great brunch recipes like:

• Bacon Roasted Potatoes
• Spinach and Veggie Egg Casserole
• Arnold Palmer Iced Tea Lemonade Mocktail
• Pear Salad

If you're hosting a dinner party, these cakes would be the perfect dessert to compliment these fall dinner recipes:

• Apple Pan Seared Pork Tenderloin
• Creamy Roasted Mushroom Fennel Polenta
• Goat Cheese Rosemary Drop Biscuits
• Pumpkin Pulled Pork Bowls

Mini Apple Spice Rum Cakes

Prep Time: 15 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 27 minutes minutes

Cooling Time: 15 minutes minutes

Total Time: 57 minutes minutes

5 from 2 votes

This is the perfect fall dessert to make! Mini Apple Spice Rum Cakes are a twist on pound cake, made with fall spices like cloves, ginger and allspice, spiced rum and crisp apples. Serve it with a homemade spiced rum caramel sauce and top with a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream.

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Author: Madison Wetherill

Equipment

• 1 Bundtlette Pan

Ingredients

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Apple Rum Cakes

• ▢ 5 tablespoons butter melted
• ▢ 1 cups white sugar
• ▢ 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• ▢ 2 eggs
• ▢ 1 cups flour
• ▢ ⅛ teaspoon baking soda
• ▢ ¼ teaspoon allspice
• ▢ ½ teaspoon ginger
• ▢ ½ teaspoon cloves
• ▢ 2 ounces spiced rum
• ▢ ⅓ cup greek yogurt
• ▢ 1 granny smith apple peeled and chopped into ½ inch pieces

For the spiced rum caramel

• ▢ ½ cup sugar
• ▢ 4 tablespoons butter
• ▢ 3 tablespoons heavy cream
• ▢ 1 ½ ounces spiced rum

Instructions

Apple Spiced Rum Cakes

• Preheat oven to 325ºF. Grease a mini bundt pan and set aside.
• Mix together the melted butter with the sugar and vanilla.
• Add in the eggs and mix together.
• Whisk in flour, baking soda, and spices to mixing bowl and combine until you can just see small streaks of flour.
• Add in the spiced rum, yogurt and apple pieces until mixed completely. If your batter looks watery, keep mixing gently until the batter is fully incorporated.
• Pour batter into mini bundt pan openings, about ⅔ of the way full so each spot is evenly full.
• Bake for 27 minutes or until a toothpick comes out with just a bit of cake on it.
• Allow cakes to cool in pan for 3-5 minutes. Then carefully flip pan over a wire cooling rack. Leave upside down for 5-10 minutes. At that point cakes should fall right out when you lift the pan up. If not, give the pan a little shake and they'll fall out onto the rack.

Spiced Rum Caramel

• While the cakes are cooling, measure out your ingredients for the caramel and set them aside. Making caramel moves quickly, so you want to have everything ready!
• Add sugar to a small sauce pan and turn heat to medium.
• Stir around the sugar constantly as clumps begin forming. Then the sugar will melt down to be a smooth, clear liquid. You'll see the sugar pulling away from the pan as you stir.
• Allow the sugar to melt for just a few minutes, then remove from heat and add in butter (it will bubble or boil - this is normal!). Whisk until completely combined and the sugar is starting to have an amber color to it. Then add in heavy cream and whisk completely.
• Return to heat and let caramel bubble and smooth out for 2-3 minutes. Remove from heat again, add in spiced rum and mix it in. Let caramel sit and cool for 30 minutes or until it thickens and solidifies again.

Assemble the Cakes

• Drizzle a generous amount of caramel on top of the cakes. Then top with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Then drizzle more caramel on top and enjoy!

Nutrition

Serving: 1g | Calories: 530kcal | Carbohydrates: 69g | Protein: 6g | Fat: 22g | Saturated Fat: 13g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 7g | Trans Fat: 1g | Cholesterol: 117mg | Sodium: 194mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 52g