Aruba, Jamaica: put on your Beach Boys CD and have a slice of Piña Colada Rum Cake on your way to Kokomo.

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May 2005

Product Reviews / Main Nibbles / Cookies, Cakes & Pastries

Bahamas Rum Cake Factory

Individual & Full-Size Bahamian Rum Cakes

A tropical rum cake is a simple affair: sweet, moist, saturated with a sugary rum syrup, and satisfying. Yet, not all those on the market are equally satisfying.

If you’re jonesing for a Caribbean-style rum cake, Bahamian Rum Cakes from the Bahamas Rum Cake Factory should be on your list.  From their retail store on East Street in Nassau, Bahamas, they ship fresh-baked rum cakes in three flavors—Original Caribbean, Chocolate Ecstasy, and Piña Colada.

Cakes come with a syrup packet that must be poured over the cake for the maximum effect.  Although rum is used in the batter, the taste largely bakes out.

Individual rum cakes are good for lunch boxes, picnics, the guys’ card games. They’re moist and tasty though not particularly gorgeous: they can be a bit plain looking (otherwise stated, there are prettier things to serve at ladies’ tea parties).  If a perfect aesthetic isn’t the issue, or if you plan to slather on whipped cream or ice cream, it isn’t in issue.

The 6-ounce individual cake is a mini-bundt shape and a good-size individual portion. It comes in a decorative box, suitable for stocking stuffers or general gift-giving, foodie lunch boxes and picnics, guys’ poker games, and keeping in the pantry for a snack attack when you don’t want to crack into an entire cake. The 20-ounce bundt is packaged in a decorative tin. Both have a one-year shelf life. 

Of the three flavors, the Piña Colada was the most festive, given the origins; Original Caribbean, also very tasty, is the same yellow cake recipe without the piña colada flavoring. Chocolate Ecstasy over-promises a bit: it is not a rich chocolate cake but a mildly- flavored one.  We wish it had more intense chocolate flavor, but we did consumed it all. We added some vanilla ice cream and enjoyed the net result.

The graphics of the tin and the box are very retro, bring you back to the happy, simple life of the 1950’s-era Bahamas. Though once you take your first bite of a Bahamian Rum Cake, you probably won’t think about much than your next bite.