Chocolate Rum Cake – dense cake with a fine grain and moist texture, soaked with hot rum butter sauce. Yum!
How to make Chocolate Rum Cake?
Two years ago I published a recipe for my Rum Cake made from scratch. It was quite good so this year I thought it would be great to make a chocolate version of it.
I substituted white sugar with brown sugar, added some melted chocolate and a teaspoon of coffee granules to enhance the chocolate flavor. I also added some cocoa powder into the rum butter sauce which made it thicker. Thicker sauce is harder to be soaked in the cake, so some more water could be added to it.
For some reason I needed to bake this cake longer then regular Rum Cake (about 10 minutes). It could be because of the added chocolate.
You will need a larger bundt pan, at least 1 liter volume (1 quart, 4 1/4 cup).
I hope this Chocolate Rum Cake will make your holidays happier this year.
NOTE: The cake shown below in the video is my homemade Rum Cake from Scratch. The procedure for Choolate Rum Cake is the same. You will just need to add chocolate and coffee to the batter and some cocoa powder to the sauce, as noted in the recipe.

- CHOCOLATE RUM CAKE:
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/3 cup cornstarch
- 4 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/2 cups brown sugar
- 5 eggs
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1 tsp instant coffee granules
- 1 tsp lemon juice
- 1/2 cup dark rum
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- 1/4 teaspoon rum flavoring
- 5 oz 140 g chocolate, melted
- 1/4 cup dry bread crumbs for dusting baking pan
- RUM BUTTER SAUCE:
- 1/2 cup (125 g) unsalted butter
- 1/4 cup water (or more)
- 1/4 - 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/4 - 1/2 cup dark rum
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
- 1/4 cup cocoa powder
-
Preheat your oven to 350 F (175 C). To prevent your cake from sticking to the bundt pan, prepare the pan by oiling it and sprinkling it with fine dry bread crumbs. Set aside.
-
Combine flour, cornstarch, baking powder, salt and brown sugar in a large bowl.
-
In another bowl, mix eggs with oil, milk, instant coffee granules, lemon juice, rum, vanilla extract, rum flavoring and melted chocolate. Pour half of this mixture to the dry ingredients and beat for 1-2 minutes on medium speed.
-
Add remaining liquid and beat until you get smooth mixture, about a minute. (This two-stage method will produce cake with very fine grain and moist texture).
-
Pour the batter into the bundt pan and bake for about 20 minutes. Rotate the Chocolate Rum Cake, lower the temperature to 300 F (150 C) and bake the cake for another 20 minutes. Test with wooden skewer for doneness. If the skewer does not come out clean, prolong baking time.
-
CHOCOLATE RUM BUTTER SAUCE: In a small saucepan, cook butter, sugar, water, rum, vanilla and cocoa powder until sugar dissolves.
-
After the cake has cooled a bit, poke lots of holes (at least 20) with a skewer all over the cake. SLOWLY pour half of the sauce over the cake. Let rest about 10 minutes or until the sauce is absorbed.
-
Cover the bundt pan with a serving plate, turn all together upside down and and remove the pan. Pour the remaining sauce over Chocolate Rum Cake and serve.
Table of Contents
YUM! This cake looks delicious – so moist! I wish I had a piece with my coffee right now 🙂
Thanks, Natalie! 🙂 I hope you’ll make it some day.
We don’t use coffee here at all. Can I substitute or just leave it out???
Hi, where I live it’s very difficult to find rum flavoring. I have very good dark rum but no flavoring. Should I just omit it or substitute? Thank you.