Golden Butter Rum Cake

For the cake:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Lightly grease and generously flour the inside of your 10-cup bundt cake pan. Set aside.

Using an electric mixture on medium speed, cream together butter and sugar in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Add flour, cornstarch, baking powder, salt, and 3 tablespoons oil; mix in on low speed until combined, about 1-2 minutes. Add instant pudding mix and mix on low speed for another minute, until combined.

Add eggs, milk, rum, Kahlua, remaining 1/2 cup oil, and vanilla. Beat on medium speed until completely combined, about 2-3 minutes. As Brown-Eyed Baker notes, this will be a very thin batter.

Pour batter into prepared Bundt pan and bake for 45-55 minutes, until toothpick inserted near center of cake comes out mostly clean, with moist crumbs clinging to the toothpick.

As you wait for your cake to finish baking (with about 10 minutes left), make your rum syrup (see instructions below). Once your cake comes out of the oven, wait 5 minutes, then very carefully wiggle your cake out of the pan (I used my spatula and ran it around the edges gently), inverting it onto a large serving platter. Poke lots of holes all over your cake--yes, even on the sides--with a chopstick or toothpick.

Using a brush, slowly smear warm rum sauce all over your cake. You'll really want to slow down and smother your cake at this point, making sure the sauce seeps fully into the holes and not down the sides of the cake. This process may take a while: it took me a full 20 minutes to make sure all the rum got in, but this is really the key step to achieving that awesome flavor/texture contrast!

Once you're done soaking your cake to the max, slice and serve immediately, and keep any leftovers (what leftovers?) stored in an airtight container at room temperature or in the fridge for up to 5 days.

For the rum/Kahlua sauce:

In a medium saucepan, combine butter, water, and sugar. Bring to a boil and boil for 5 minutes, stirring constantly, to create a thinnish syrup. Remove from heat and immediately stir in Kahlua or rum.