TWD—No Rum-Drenched, Turbinado Crunch Vanilla Bean Cakes

I’m writing my post for TWD a week ahead of time.  It will be fun to see how this goes.  I’ve never written a post to publish at such a later date (I know, get with the times, Katrina.)  I made the vanilla cakes a good week before our move because I knew it probably wouldn’t be able to be done otherwise.  And I wanted to share some last goodies with my Reality Sisters.  I took the Dressy Chocolate Cake from last week and the Vanilla Cake over the same night.

In “my” world, chocolate wins every time.  And while last week's cake that I made with caramel and pecans was really good (I only ate a few bites of it!), hands down all my friends LOVED the vanilla cake.  It was the clear winner of the night. 

One of my favorite TWD bloggers, Wendy at Pink Stripes chose the Rum-Drenched Vanilla Cakes on page 226 in Baking From My Home To Yours.  The unique thing about this cake is that it uses vanilla bean, which is rubbed into the sugar.  That’s always fun!  I halved the recipe and only made one loaf cake and I omitted the rum syrup.  Other than that, I followed the recipe exactly.  Instead of the syrup, I sprinkled turbinado sugar over the batter before baking the cake. 

I baked the loaf cake for 45 minutes.  It sunk a bit in the middle.

I realized something, but shh, don’t tell the world, I don’t really love vanilla bean.  I say that ever so quietly, because I know everyone seems to love it and I might get flogged or something.  I don’t know what it is, it just tastes a little strange to me.  Like I said, my friends LOVED it.

I served it with some fresh raspberries and blueberries and some whipped cream.  It was just okay to me.  I’m telling you, it a chocolate thing.  I enjoyed the sugary crunch on the top.  I kind of think I also have a hard time eating something that is technically well, so fattening when I’m not thinking it’s so heavenly.  I like to save my calories for just the things I’ll love.  That’s sensible.  I was totally happy to share this cake with people who really appreciated and enjoyed it.  So thanks to Wendy for picking this cake.  Check out Wendy’s blog this week for the recipe. 

Wendy will have the recipe on her blog.  You can always head over to Tuesday's With Dorie and check out more vanilla cake!