Rum cake Nostalgia

Picture this: Laying on the beautiful and warm sand in the Bahamas, the water is bright blue, staying at the Atlantis Resort and having a delicious rum cake on the beach. Well most of everything is true but me eating rum cake didn’t happen because I was 10 when my family went to the Bahamas and of course I could not have rum cake, but the smell was amazing! It was sweet, warm and made my mom laugh, which I did not know why until years later was her being drunk off a slice of cake.

Since I was only ten years old when I went, I never was able to experience the taste of the rum cake until I was a little older. My mom on her birthday years later kept thinking about that rum cake from the Bahamas. She said it was the best cake she ever had in her entire life. Being that my mom is picky and she literally eats Carrot Cake or Red Velvet, it must be a very good cake. Well, my dad being a very good cook and wanting to please my mom, decided that on her birthday, he would “bring back a taste of the Bahamas” to her. He wanted to try to make the cake exactly the way that they made it for her: it was a Bundt shaped cake. Golden Brown. The cake was warm and drenched with rum. On top of the Bundt rum cake, was vanilla ice cream and caramel. Finally, they had garnished the cake with nuts.

Mouth watering yet? At first, I did not understand why she loved this cake so much. I am a chocoholic so I only eat chocolate desserts. I asked her:

“What is with this cake?”

She replied: “It took me back to our vacation”

I just shrugged my shoulders. My dad made the cake and bought Rum for the occasion. He bought Dreyers Vanilla Ice Cream and Caramel from the store. The final piece was the nuts. I was not of legal age to drink, but my parents let me try “a taste” of the cake. As soon as I tried it...I remembered our trip. It brought back Nostalgia. Being on the white sand, laying on the warm beach looking at the blue water. I remembered the colorful country and the beautiful hotels. I missed the Bahamas, but the cake made it feel like I was right there. The smell of the cake. The taste of the cake. The appearance of the cake. It was delicious, but my dad put so much rum in the cake, I became dizzy. My mother said that was the exact way they made the cake. Now I understood why she was so “happy” when she ate the cake. I would be too having a good, warm piece of cake drenched with rum.

My dad making rum cake has become a specialty now. Whenever we want to go back to our trip, we just have a taste of that cake. The trip was amazing and I definitely missed the Island.

Our trip to the Bahamas was a once in a lifetime experience. Staying in a 5-star resort on the beach, seeing water so blue that it makes the sky look dull and eating at Buffets while celebrating Mother’s Day and My Dad’s birthday just made me really appreciate my life. I experienced this at the age of 10 years old. It was just weird but in a good way that all it took for me to experience the Bahamas again, was just having a taste of rum cake or in a more positive way of saying this: A taste of Paradise.