A rum cake is a delightful and effortless festive centerpiece for any holiday feast. The rum-infused sponge is baked in a Bundt pan and is saturated with a tantalizing rum syrup to produce a cake that’s so moist and flavorful that glaze or frosting becomes unnecessary. It beautifully complements a cup of hot coffee or provides a sweet concluding note to a day of festivities. However, you are misguided if you believe the common fallacy that all the alcohol will evaporate during the baking process. Spoiler alert – it does not.

Typically, alcohol serves as a conduit for the flavor a particular recipe calls for, be it a savory rum cake or a red wine sauce for your succulent steak. It also enhances the flavors of other ingredients, like in a penne alla vodka, where the vodka amplifies the tomato taste and tenderizes the meat. Although alcohol is a versatile cooking ingredient and there are ample reasons to add it to your dishes, keep in mind that while a significant amount of it does indeed evaporate during cooking, it never fully disappears.

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When cooking with alcohol, it’s impossible to fully bake or cook all the alcohol out of a dish or dessert. The remaining alcohol content in the final dish depends on certain factors such as the cooking temperature, the duration of cooking and the surface area of your cooking vessel. Alcohol tends to evaporate more at higher temperatures and more of it cooks off the longer something bakes. Nonetheless, some alcohol molecules will latch onto other food particles in the dish and remain there. Studies have shown that even after prolonged hours of cooking, a small amount of alcohol still lingers in the dish.

Considering the size of your cooking vessel when making rum cake is crucial. A larger pan or skillet has a larger surface area, which increases the dish’s contact with oxygen, causing the alcohol to evaporate more quickly. Keep in mind the ingredients you are using and what you are making. For instance, a rum syrup drizzle on your rum cake may not have cooked long enough, or at the appropriate temperature, to evaporate much alcohol. Conversely, the cake itself may contain anywhere from a half to a full cup of rum, resulting in a baked cake with about 5% alcohol, the equivalent of a beer!

There may be various reasons why you may wish to substitute the alcohol in what you cook, be they health, recovery, or religion-based. You don’t have to feel excluded from the world of boozy bakes. There are numerous ways to substitute the alcohol in rum cake and other recipes because the primary focus should be on the flavor, with the alcohol simply acting as a carrier. There are countless ways to obtain similar flavors without alcohol, such as using different vinegars, herbs, spices, and syrups. Make sure to check these cooking and baking ingredient swaps.

Rum cake can be prepared with rum extracts and rum-flavored syrups or a combination of ingredients like white grape juice, molasses, and almond extract. Alternatively, you can find non-alcoholic rum. There are a plethora of non-alcoholic spirits available that can replace their boozy equivalents. So, prepare your next rum cake alcohol-free and cease worrying about the alcohol content in your next baking venture.

For more details, check out the original Daily Meal article.