paranoid question regarding rum!

[flashy09]

I had a rum cake last night at dinner. It was sooo good, however, it was quite soaked with the rum! I was eating away assuming alcohol content is cooked off when baked, but now I am nervous that maybe that is not true? Would you ever add rum to the cake after it was baked - that is kind of what it tasted it like!

 

[pickle85]

I would imagine you would soak the cake in rum after it was cooked. x

 

[IHrtSteve]

I had strawberries in grand mariner liquor when press with DS. All was fine...

 

[kermie219]

I'm sure a one off will do no harm Don't worry...but I do think it's soaked after it's baked? Maybe just don't eat one every night hehe

 

[ArcaneSpark]

TBH I would have thought if they added rum it was after the same way you add lemon syrup to a lemon drizzle cake. That said unless you ate the whole cake I don't think it would have done baby any harm. UK guidelines allow 1-2 units of alcohol as safe.

 

[fi79]

I think you will be fine. There wont have been that much in it and it's not like your doing it all the time. When I was first pg I had a box of chocs with some boozy ones in it. I didnt eat them and when I mentioned it to my mw she just laughed at me, patted my hand and said 'I think you'd be ok to eat those dear.'.

 

[Clover Jane]

I think it's very unlikely that consuming alcohol (in any form or amount) once or twice during pregnancy would cause damage to the fetus.
I think the problem arises when pregnant women are habitual heavy drinkers (I know several women who swear it's healthy to have one glass of red wine in the evenings during pregnancy).
I am not drinking during pregnancy, but I've never been much of a drinker anyway... if alcohol was part of my life before pregnancy, I doubt I'd avoid it entirely during pregnancy. I'd probably just limit myself to very moderate amounts on special occasions.
Women have been drinking and having children for thousands and thousands of years... I mean, until a few hundred years ago, there wasn't much access to clean, safe, drinkable water (like in the European middle ages) and all anybody ever drank was wine, ale, mead, or other alcoholic beverages... including during pregnancy.
So, yeah... i wouldn't worry overmuch about the rum cake.

 

[flashy09]

I have tried to reassure myself that since a kid could order the cake at the restaurant it can't have too much alcohol in it! It's not even that I am a huge believer in absolutely no alcohol when pregnant, but I just like to be aware of the amount and that I am in fact drinking rather than stuffing rum into my mouth by the forkfull, lol, completely oblivious!

 

[Clover Jane]

I've been looking at some recipes, and it looks to me like the standard rum cake has a cup of rum in it: half a cup in the batter (which would mostly cook out) and half a cup in the glaze (which would retain its full alcohol content, as it isn't cooked).

Keep in mind, that's for the entire cake.
Even if you ate a quarter of the cake, then you consumed, at most, a couple of tablespoons of rum. At most.
And I doubt you ate that much of the cake. You probably ate half that much.

 

[flashy09]

I've been looking at some recipes, and it looks to me like the standard rum cake has a cup of rum in it: half a cup in the batter (which would mostly cook out) and half a cup in the glaze (which would retain its full alcohol content, as it isn't cooked).

Keep in mind, that's for the entire cake.
Even if you ate a quarter of the cake, then you consumed, at most, a couple of tablespoons of rum. At most.
And I doubt you ate that much of the cake. You probably ate half that much.

Thanks so much for all that work! I feel very relieved.

 

[Heather9603]

The alcohol combined with something so spongy and absorbent like a cake would make it have pretty much no effect on you. And like others said, its not like you ate the whole cake so the content in your one slice was probably like 1/4 of a shot full. They probably just used a dark rum so it just had a strong flavor.

I wouldn't worry about it, it takes constant alcohol use throughout pregnancy to do any damage.

 

[Clover Jane]

I've been looking at some recipes, and it looks to me like the standard rum cake has a cup of rum in it: half a cup in the batter (which would mostly cook out) and half a cup in the glaze (which would retain its full alcohol content, as it isn't cooked).

Keep in mind, that's for the entire cake.
Even if you ate a quarter of the cake, then you consumed, at most, a couple of tablespoons of rum. At most.
And I doubt you ate that much of the cake. You probably ate half that much.

Thanks so much for all that work! I feel very relieved.

No prob. I've got nothing better to do on a saturday morning, more's the pity.