Recipe
🍰 DESSERT
Bermuda Rum Cake
A dense, buttery cake soaked in dark Bermuda rum, the island's signature celebration dessert.
Bermudian · medium · serves 10
prep 25 min · cook 55 min
~456 cal · 6g protein · 51g carbs · 21g fat · 1g fiber · 32g sugars · 13g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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The Bermuda rum cake is the island's most famous sweet, a rich, moist, buttery cake steeped in the dark rum that has been central to Bermudian life since the days of sail. Sold in tins to every visitor and baked at home for weddings and Christmas, it is as much a souvenir as a dessert.
The cake itself is deep and tender, close-crumbed and heavy with butter and brown sugar, sometimes carrying a hint of nutmeg or vanilla. What makes it unmistakably Bermudian is the finish: while still warm, it is brushed again and again with a glaze of melted butter, sugar, and plenty of dark rum, which soaks in and keeps the cake moist for days while deepening its flavor.
Rooted in the rum-running and seafaring history of the mid-Atlantic colony, the cake has become a point of local pride, each bakery and family guarding its own recipe. Served in thin, potent slices with coffee, it is Bermuda's warm, boozy way of marking an occasion.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally vegetarian and nut- and pork-free. No swaps needed.
Toggle a diet and the ingredients rewrite themselves with regional substitutes.
🥕 Vegetarian
🌱 Vegan
🌾 Gluten-Free
🥛 Dairy-Free
🥜 Nut-Free
🥚 Egg-Free
🐖 Pork-Free
Dietary labels are a cooking guide, not allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish; we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, read the label on every product you use, and note that a kitchen can cross-contaminate in ways a recipe cannot control.
Ingredients
US
Metric
Serves 10
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup butter, softened
4 eggs
1.5 cups brown sugar
3/4 cup whole milk
3/4 cup dark rum (Goslings Black Seal, traditionally)
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp and 1/4 tsp vanilla and grated nutmeg
Instructions
1
Cream the butter and brown sugar until pale and fluffy, then beat in the eggs one at a time.
2
Fold in the flour, baking powder, nutmeg, and vanilla alternately with the milk, beginning and ending with flour, then beat in half the rum to make a smooth batter.
3
Pour into a greased ring or bundt pan and bake at 325F until a skewer comes out clean, about 50 minutes.
✎ Chef’s note
Bake low and slow so the dense batter cooks through the middle without drying the edges.
4
While the cake cools slightly, warm the remaining rum with a spoon of butter and sugar into a glaze.
5
Prick the warm cake all over and brush the rum glaze on in several passes, letting each soak in.
✎ Chef’s note
Keep brushing over a few hours; the more slowly it drinks the glaze, the moister and more flavorful it gets.
6
Rest the cake at least a few hours, or overnight, before slicing thin to serve.
Bermudian celebration baking.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Hamilton. Sherry peppers began as ship's stores. Sailors steeped bird's eye peppers in fortified wine to make food past its best edible, and the bottle stayed on the table long after the reason for it had gone. Cassava pie at Christmas is documented on the island as far back as 1612.
🗺️
Bermuda. Christmas here means cassava pie, a savoury-sweet dish of grated cassava with pork and chicken baked slowly, and the tradition is documented back to 1612. That is early enough that the island's cooking preserves a seventeenth-century Atlantic layer, cassava from the Caribbean and salt cod from the north, that later arrivals never replaced.
🌍
North America. The most consequential technique on this continent is nixtamalisation, cooking maize with lime or wood ash. It loosens the skins, makes the dough that becomes tortillas and tamales, and frees up niacin the body cannot otherwise absorb, which is why maize spread around the world without the technique and took pellagra with it.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
More from Bermuda
Codfish and PotatoesBermuda's traditional Sunday plate: salt cod and potatoes with egg, avocado, banana, and a tomato or egg sauce.
Bermuda Banana BreadA dense, moist banana loaf, lightly spiced and buttery, that Bermudians bake for breakfast and afternoon tea alike.
Bermuda Fish SandwichA generous fried fish fillet piled with slaw and tartar sauce on sweet raisin bread, Bermuda's iconic weekend lunch.
Browse all Bermuda recipes →
Good to know
You’ll need: Oven.
Storing it: Store in an airtight container. Most keep 2 to 3 days at room temperature, and longer refrigerated.
Make it a Bermuda meal
Bermuda Cassava PieDinner
Rum SwizzleDrink
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Frequently asked questions
What is Bermuda Rum Cake?
A dense, buttery cake soaked in dark Bermuda rum, the island's signature celebration dessert.
Where does Bermuda Rum Cake come from?
Bermuda Rum Cake is a Bermudian dish from Hamilton, Bermuda.
Can Bermuda Rum Cake be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Bermuda Rum Cake recipe includes substitution suggestions for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and pork-free versions, including several at once such as gluten-free and dairy-free together. Treat them as a starting guide rather than a guarantee, and see the allergen note below.
Is Bermuda Rum Cake safe for people with food allergies?
Our dietary labels and substitutions are a cooking guide, not medical or allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish, but we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, always read the label on every product you use, and remember a home or commercial kitchen can cross-contaminate ingredients in ways a recipe cannot control.
How long does Bermuda Rum Cake take to make?
About 80 minutes total (25 minutes prep, 55 minutes cooking), serving 10.
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