Brown Butter Rum Raisin Pound Cake

Y’all. Listen. This year’s Twelve Days of Pound Cake theme of “Sugar, Spice, and Everything Nice” exists because of this cake right here. It’s my Brown Butter Rum Raisin Pound Cake, and it is absolutely the most perfect over-the-top rum cake for every holiday season forevermore.

This cake, BBs, uses spiced rum to soak the raisins, giving them a deliciously decadent texture and flavor in the final cake. In the cake itself, we have the all-star trio of cinnamon, allspice, and nutmeg, which lend warmth and depth to both the raisins and the sponge. Of course it uses rum, but this cake uses spiced rum, which further enhances the spices in the cake.

Oh! And about the cake…with a brown butter base, the flavor of this cake is so rich, complex and yummy that this pound cake is as perfectly pleasantly plump as they come.

Listen, this recipe uses a lot of ingredients, and I never, ever want you to waste ingredients on a failed baking project. So, to make help you feel more confident with this fun baking project, make sure that you take a look at the resources in this post after the recipe! They’re designed to increase your consistency and confidence with this stunning centerpiece! ❤️

In this Post

The Recipe

Brown Butter Rum Raisin Pound Cake

5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars 2 Stars 1 Star

No reviews

Print Recipe

Pin Recipe

This Brown Butter Rum Raisin Pound Cake has deeply warm spice notes, beautiful caramelization, delicious depth from the spiced rum, and beautifully plump raisins that make it the over-the-top, grown-up rum cake of your holidays’ dreams.

• Total Time: 5-7 hours
• Yield: 18 servings 1x

Ingredients

Scale 1x2x3x

For the Cake:

• 384 g (3 c) all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground allspice
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• 227 g (1 c) brown butter, room temperature
• 1 tbsp oil
• 250 g (1 1/4 c) granulated sugar
• 250 g (1 1/4 c) dark brown sugar (you can also use light brown sugar)
• 5 eggs
• 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 227 g (1 c) full-fat sour cream
• 218 g (1 1/2 c) raisins
• 313 g (1 1/4 c) spiced rum

For the Spiced Rum Butter Reduction:

• 50 g (1/4 c) granulated sugar
• 188 g (3/4 c) macerating liquid (reserved spice rum)
• 114 g (1/2 c) butter
• 1/8 tsp fine sea salt
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/8 tsp allspice

For the Cinnamon Cream Cheese Glaze:

• 154 g (2/3 c) cream cheese, room temperature
• 240 g (2 c) confectioner’s sugar
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 – 3 tbsp whole milk
• 1/8 tsp fine sea salt
• 1/8 tsp ground cinnamon

Cook Mode Prevent your screen from going dark

Instructions

To Make the Brown Butter:

1. Place the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. 
2. Allow the butter to melt fully, then begin gently stirring. Continue stirring constantly. 
3. The butter will go through stages. At first, it will simply look like melted butter. Continue stirring.
4. The next step of browned butter is the foamy step. This is the longest part of the browned butter process. Continue stirring.
5. The foamy brown butter will lessen (but not eliminate entirely), and you’ll start to notice browned bits on the sides and bottom of your saucepan. These are browned milk solids, and this is the objective!
6. Once you see the browned bits on the bottom of your saucepan, remove the brown butter to a heat-proof bowl or mason jar to cool completely. If you allow the brown butter to remain in the saucepan, it will burn.
7. Once the brown butter has come to room temperature, allow it to chill in the refrigerator until 45 minutes to an hour before your baking time. This butter is going to be creamed for our recipe, so it needs to be re-solidified.

To Prep the Raisins:

1. Place raisins in a small bowl. 
2. Heat spiced rum over medium heat, just until warm. Do not boil.
3. Pour spiced rum over raisins, and cover with plastic wrap. Set aside until ready to use.

To Make the Batter:

1. Preheat oven to 325°F.  It is highly recommended to use an oven thermometer for this recipe, since proper oven temperature will impact the finished product.
2. In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, kosher salt, cinnamon, allspice, and nutmeg. 
3. Place the room temperature brown butter and oil in a large mixing bowl, or the bowl of your stand mixer.  Mix on low speed until smooth.
4. Slowly add the granulated sugar and brown sugar and mix on medium speed until the mixture is light and fluffy.  
5. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing each egg until it’s fully incorporated before adding the next egg.  Scrape the bowl as needed to ensure even mixing.
6. Add vanilla extract and mix until thoroughly combined.  
7. Add half of the flour mixture and mix on low speed until nearly combined.
8. Add all of the sour cream and mix on low speed until nearly combined.  
9. Add the second half of the flour mixture and mix on low speed until nearly combined.  Stop mixing just before the mixture is fully together.
10. Using a rubber spatula, fully scrape the sides and bottom of the mixing bowl.  Keep mixing until the batter is smooth and consistent.
11. Remove the raisins from the spiced rum, and place them in a small bowl. Reserve the spiced rum because you’ll need it later!
12. Cover the raisins with two tablespoons of flour. Stir to combine, then fold into the batter.
13. Grease a 10-12 cup bundt pan as you normally would and place the batter in the pan.
14. Bake the cake at a true 325°F for 65-75 minutes, or until an instant read thermometer reads 212°F.  
15. Allow the cake to rest for ten minutes, then invert onto a cooling rack to cool completely.

To Make the Butter Rum Reduction:

1. Combine macerating liquid, sugar, vanilla, allspice, and salt in a small saucepan.
2. Bring the mixture to a boil, then whisk occasionally until the solids are completely dissolved.
3. Remove from the heat and add pure vanilla extract and butter.   Stir gently until the butter is completely melted.  This recipe makes enough butter rum reduction to brush and pour over the cake multiple times.
4. Using a pastry brush, gently brush the warm butter rum simple syrup over the entire cake.  This step can be repeated multiple times while the cake is warm.  It’s recommended to wait about ten minutes between simple syrup layers.
5. If you’re trying to make a more boozy rum cake, you can poke holes in the top of the cake and pour the butter rum simple syrup directly over the holes.  I would only recommend doing this once though.
6. Allow the cake to cool completely.

To Make the Cinnamon Cream Cheese Glaze:

1. Place the cream cheese in a medium sized mixing bowl.
2. Use a hand mixer to mix the cream cheese until it is completely smooth. 
3. Place the confectioner’s sugar, fine sea salt, cinnamon, vanilla extract, and 1 ½ tbsp of whole milk into the mixing bowl. 
4. Using a small whisk, stir gently to combine. Stir until the confectioner’s sugar no longer collects moisture from the milk or the cream cheese. 
5. If necessary, add up to 1 ½ tbsp more of whole milk, but do it ½ tsp at a time.
6. The final glaze should be the consistency of thick honey, and should pour easily over the sides of the cake. Use a spoon, spouted measuring cup, or squeeze bottle to spread the glaze over the cake.
7. Enjoy!

Notes

Want additional support that’s designed to build consistency in the baking kitchen?

Stay tuned after this recipe for all of my best execution tips! Confidence is key when going into any baking project, and the resources available in this post are designed to help you become proficient with this special cake.

• Author: Shani
• Prep Time: 1.5 hours
• Cook Time: 65-75 minutes
• Category: Dessert

Brown Butter Rum Raisin Pound Cake Ingredients

All-Purpose Flour: I often get questions about why I choose all-purpose flour for pound cakes. All-purpose flour contains a higher protein content than cake flour, which leads to the classic, “pleasantly plump” pound cake that we all know and love.

Baking Soda: This cake contains sour cream, so I chose baking soda for the leavener. Baking soda needs acid to activate, and the acid in the sour cream (and, to a lesser extent, the acid in the raisins!) helps this activation.

Kosher Salt: Every dessert needs salt, in order to avoid becoming overly sweet. The tiny bit of salt creates a huge amount of balance in this pound cake, and helps even out what could be competing spice flavors. If you’re using table salt, cut the amount in half for the best results!

Ground Cinnamon: Cinnamon adds a woodsy, deep flavor to this cake. A little goes a very long way!

Ground Allspice: Allspice is so aptly named; its flavor profile has elements of cinnamon, pepper, nutmeg, and cloves, which enhances the “spice” in this spice cake. This cake has big, big flavor, and the allspice is one of the reasons for that.

Nutmeg: Nutmeg gives a warm and slightly spicy element to this cake. So yeah. YUM.

Brown Butter: That’s right, BB. This cake uses brown butter. It’s a additional step but it lends massive flavor. In this particular recipe, we actually need to re-solidify the brown butter so that it can work together with the sugars to cream. This process adds additional leavening to the cake.

Vegetable Oil: You can use any vegetable oil for this cake; my personal favorite for baking is avocado oil, with its very neutral flavor profile. The oil in this recipe is a humectant, which means that keeps the cake moist (🙉) for longer, so even though it probably won’t last very long, at least you have a little insurance that it can last for a few days longer than it otherwise would!

Granulated Sugar: Granulated sugar makes recipes sweet, to be sure, but the sugar in your recipes does a whole lot more! Combined with the butter, it helps create volume and lift for this cake, preventing it from becoming dense. Sugar also leads to caramelization, so that beautiful browning on your cake comes from this special ingredient!

Dark Brown Sugar: In addition to all of the wonderful characteristics of granulated sugar, dark brown sugar has the delicious element of molasses that adds to the deep, rich flavor of this cake.

Eggs: The protein-filled egg white helps with cake rise, and the fatty yolk gives you delicious flavor. The egg is truly a multi-tool in a shell!

Pure Vanilla Extract: The vanilla in this cake provides the perfect adds an additional warmth that is perfectly welcome in this showstopper of a cake. 

Full-Fat Sour Cream: Full-fat sour cream adds delicious flavor, and the high fat content in the sour cream provides tenderizing qualities that keep the proteins (from the flour and the egg whites) from becoming too tough.

Raisins, Soaked in Spice Rum: The raisins in this cake get soaked in spiced rum. This creates deliciously plump surprised in every bite of this amazing cake.

Now that you know what the ingredients do in this cake, let’s take a look at some technique tips that will help you execute this cake absolutely perfectly!

Techniques for the Best Cakes

Listen, this cake has a lot of ingredients and a lot of steps. I wouldn’t post it, though, unless I knew it would be accessible for bakers at every level.

(That’s you, BB. You’re “baker”.)

But I get it. Sometimes, we look at ingredient lists and think “nope”. And we miss out on some of the best recipes because of it. So I’ve curated a list of technique posts from the BwB site to help you have fantastic, unexpectedly amazing results with this recipe every time you make it!

• How to Brown Butter
• My Favorite Bundt Pans
• Sifting: Quick Technique, Huge Impact
• Meet Your Kitchen BFF–Your Digital Kitchen Scale!
• Technique Tips for the Best Pound Cakes
• How to Cream Butter and Sugar (With New Video!)
• Baking 101: How to Measure Ingredients
• How to Grease a Bundt Pan
• The Best Tools for Perfect Pound Cakes
• Knowing When to Stop a Technique
• Begin with Butter Home Baking Academy | Perfect Pound Cakes Class!

These resources are super helpful to help you build consistency and confidence on your baking journey. Happy reading!

But wait! There’s more! Grab your coffee or a glass of wine and get ready to check out my favorite equipment!

Important Tools

Guess what? Begin with Butter has its own Amazon Storefront, where you can find all of the amazing equipment that I used in this Brown Butter Rum Raisin Pound Cake! Want even more specific product recommendations? Check out the product links, below.

I do get paid a commission when you purchase, but these are the tools that I use all the time in my own kitchen.

If you have these tools already, great! Think of this as a checklist to help you build the confidence that you’ll need to execute this cake!

• Taylor Oven Thermometer
• ThermoWorks Square Dot Thermometer
• Ozeri Pronto Digital Food Scale
• OXO Digital Food Scale
• KitchenAid Hand Mixer
• KitchenAid Stand Mixer 
• Stainless Steel Mixing Bowl Set
• Deli Containers for Prep
• OXO Spatula Set
• Sifter
• My Absolute Favorite Pound Cake Pans

Conclusion – You’ve Got This

BB, this rum-soaked bundt cake might look intimidating at first glance. But, I promise you that you – yes, you! – can create this showstopper in your own kitchen. The secret ingredient isn’t fancy equipment or professional training – it’s time. By treating time as an essential ingredient (whether it’s the patience needed to brown your butter properly, letting those raisins luxuriate in their rum bath, or allowing each egg to fully incorporate), you’re setting yourself up for success.

Before diving in, take a few extra minutes to read through not just the recipe steps, but all the additional tips and notes provided. Understanding why to brush the cake multiple times with rum reduction, or how to achieve the perfect glaze consistency, will give you the confidence to tackle each step.

Remember: great baking isn’t about rushing to the finish line – it’s about enjoying the journey and respecting the process. When you do, the result is this incredibly moist, perfectly spiced Brown Butter Rum Pound Cake cake that’s worthy of any celebration. Happy baking BB! I’m cheering for you! Don’t forget to tag me in your finished product photos on Instagram (@beginwithbutter) so that I can celebrate you!

(Still got questions? Reach out to me at bakingbestie@beginwithbutter.com and I’m happy to help!)