Underage Rum Cake

Dec 06, 2006 00:26

I have a friend who wants to make a rum cake, but they are under 21. What options would they have that won't land them (or an of-age friend) in jail ( Read more... )

baking, substitutions, cake, rum

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Comments 60

op_lattethunder December 6 2006, 08:39:33 UTC
How sad that the law doesn't understandgood cooking. Then again, your rum cake could end up like my friend's grandmother's cake. More rum than cake. ;)

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sdragon December 6 2006, 08:45:27 UTC
Agreed. I'm tempted to try to cook with them so I wouldn't technically be "providing" them with alcohol, but there are issues there too.

(and for various reasons, they don't want to ask their parents)

Ugh, personally, I can't stand rum cake (was given it as a kid by my yuppie aunt and hated it. XD )

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op_lattethunder December 6 2006, 08:47:51 UTC
I can understand the parental problems. My mother flipped out when she found out my dad bought me wine to cook their dinner with. It's not like I was drinking it!

Maybe if you were to just put that one ingrediant in yourself and then ensure that the cake actually makes it into the oven, you wouldn't technically be doing any wrong. Then again, I'm not the law and the law is sometimes weird.

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shermarama December 6 2006, 09:42:43 UTC
It may be worth actually checking the law. I realise you're in a different country but the UK law says (http://www.drinkingandyou.com/site/uk/child.htm) that anyone over 5 can drink alcohol; they're restricted from buying it or drinking it pubs, but if you want to give your child some wine at home you can. I mention this because I'm pretty sure that most UK people who haven't checked have no idea about this, assuming that the 18 limit anywhere public just means it's illegal for under-18s to drink anywhere.

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shermarama December 6 2006, 10:31:43 UTC
Good grief. Yes, okay, I've done a bit more googling, it seems that US law really is that rigid. And that all the government agencies are screamingly paranoid about underage drinking. Man, that really can't be healthy.

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greencow December 6 2006, 11:44:16 UTC
it's not. they now have ads saying that if you start drinking at a young age, you'll increase your chances of becoming an alcoholic.

when *i* was a kid, i was allowed a very small glass of wine with dinner if we were having italian food.

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shermarama December 6 2006, 14:10:11 UTC
I was quite scared by this government website page - the SAMHSA, which seem to deal with substance misuse - http://www.family.samhsa.gov/stop/talk.aspx

There's the misleadingly phrased bits: "The teenage brain is still developing. Alcohol can impair the parts of the brain that control the following:.." followed by a list of the things that alcohol does to every brain ever, on a temporary basis, i.e., nothing to do with whether or not the brain is teenage.

While we're throwing any pretence of science out of the window, let's have "Teens who use alcohol have higher rates of academic problems and poor performance than non-drinkers." Correlation is *not* causation, but this is presented just as is, as if it's enough.

Then there's the just plain laughable; "Let your children know that drinking under the legal age of 21 is a major risk for people with a family history of alcohol." - oh yes, did we never tell you that your grandfather was a bottle of gin?

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starbrow December 6 2006, 09:54:08 UTC
I think if the alcohol is yours, and remains in your possession, and you put it into the cake, that would be fine. (Assuming you are over 21 and would buy the alcohol.)

It's illegal to serve alcohol or buy alcohol for someone under 21, but you're doing neither of those things in that scenario (as the alcohol cooks out).

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sdragon December 6 2006, 18:27:16 UTC
I was wondering about that - I saw a recipe with 1 cup in the cake and 1 cup as the glaze.

But would you recommend plain white Bacardi for the cake? Or spiced rum?

(personally, I hate rum cake, so I'm not even inclined to do a test run)

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dytyna December 6 2006, 18:57:26 UTC
agreed.
same as in Canada actually. Hell, we do wine tastings in school (mind you, i think everyone has to be 19 for that one...), but we also cook with wines all the time. imagine telling a student she couldn't learn today because "your birthdays in december" or something retarded like that.

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Re: Excellent! starkraving_mad December 6 2006, 22:24:24 UTC
I went to culinary school in the US and they pretty much ignore that part of it. I was 21 when I started, but I had classmates who were 18 and noone tried to stop them from cooking with wine or liquor. I guess it was technically against the law, but I don't think anyone even thought about it in class.

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sdragon December 6 2006, 18:29:52 UTC
Good to know; thanks! I'll have to check WA law.

I think he'll be giving it as a Christmas gift to a friend (I have to wonder though; couldn't he buy a rum cake from a specialty bakery and not need ID? )

Hmmm... so rather than buying a whole bottle, I could maybe pick up one or two of the airplane-sized bottles and some rum extract instead? I thought the 1 cup seemed a little much.

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axedmoon December 7 2006, 04:38:33 UTC
You can't even buy chocolates (those filled with original spirits) without ID.

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