A rum cake is an easy, festive addition to any holiday table. The rum-spiked sponge is baked in a Bundt pan, and drizzled and brushed with a rum syrup. The result is a cake that’s so moist and rich that it doesn’t need a glaze or frosting. It goes perfectly with a cup of coffee, or to top off a day of celebrations. However, if you’re abstaining from alcohol, don’t believe people when they tell you all the alcohol bakes off during the cooking process. Spoiler alert — it doesn’t.

Typically, alcohol is merely a carrier for the flavor a particular recipe calls for, whether it’s a scrumptious rum cake or a red wine sauce for your steak. Alcohol also enhances the flavors of other ingredients, like in a penne alla vodka where the vodka makes the tomato stand out and tenderizes meat. It’s a versatile ingredient, and there are plenty of reasons to use it, but you should remember that while a significant amount of the alcohol does cook off, it’s never 100% gone.

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When cooking with booze, it’s impossible to cook or bake all the alcohol out of a dish or dessert, but how much remains in the final presentation depends on a few things, namely temperature and length of time spent cooking, as well as the surface area of your cooking dish. Alcohol evaporates faster at higher temperatures, and more alcohol cooks off the longer something bakes. No matter what, though, alcohol molecules will stick to molecules of other things in the dish and stay put. It has been shown that even cooking dishes for hours still leaves a small percentage of alcohol remaining in the dish.

When making a rum cake, the size of your cooking vessel plays a crucial role. More surface area means the dish has more contact with oxygen, causing the alcohol to evaporate quicker in a larger pan or skillet. The ingredients you employ along with the dish you’re prepping should be thoughtfully considered. A rum syrup used as a topping, for instance, probably won’t have cooked long enough or at the right temperature to evaporate much alcohol. The cake, conversely, usually contains half to a full cup of rum, giving it about 5% alcohol content—a beer’s equivalent.

There could be numerous reasons to substitute alcohol in your recipes, including health-related, recovery, or religious motivations. You can still participate in the world of boozy baking, even without alcohol. The main focus is the flavor, and the alcohol merely acts a carrier. An array of cooking and baking ingredient swaps provide similar flavors without alcohol including various vinegars, herbs, spices, and syrups.

You can create a rum cake using rum extracts and rum-infused syrups or a fusion of elements such as white grape juice, molasses, and almond extract. Alternatively, you can seek non-alcoholic rum. There’s an abundance of non-alcoholic spirits to replace their alcoholic equivalents. Hence, your next rum cake can be alcohol-free, and you won’t have to be concerned about the alcohol content in your future baking endeavors.

Refer to the original article on Daily Meal for more information.