Russian Cake (Creole Trifle

In one of my summer reading books I read about them eating this cake and it sounded so yummy and different. I searched high and low and finally found the recipe on http://herbsaint.wordpress.com. Posted on here to make sure I always have the recipe and so I can added to the shopping list to try. Time does not include overnight chilling.

• Ready In: 1 hr
• Yields: 1 cake

Ingredients

• 1 (18 ounce) box  Duncan Hines yellow cake mix (6-8 cups diced cake pieces) or 1  almond  cake mix (6-8 cups diced cake pieces)
• 1  cup water (or as specified in cake mix directions)
• 1⁄3 cup  vegetable oil (or as specified in cake mix directions)
• 2 -3  eggs (or as specified in cake mix directions)
• 8  tablespoons  seedless raspberry jam
• 1 -1 1⁄2 cup white rum (will depend on amount of cake pieces)
• 1  teaspoon  anise flavoring (look for the real stuff)
•  red food coloring (just in case, my jam wasn't red enough)
•  buttercream frosting
•  colored sprinkles (the spherical kind)

Directions

1. Mix rum, anise, jam and (optionally) the food color with a wire whisk until everything is well integrated; the alcohol in the rum helps dissolve the jam quickly so it shouldn’t be more than 30 seconds.
2. Pour evenly over your cake pieces and place bowl in fridge for a few hours or overnight (covered). The more cake pieces you use for the inside, the denser and heavier the cake will be. The Russian cakes I remember weighed several pounds and seemed very heavy for their size.
3. When ready to assemble cake, bake your boxed cake according to instructions in a 9-inch cake pan. When cool split the cake evenly down the middle. Place one half in a 9-inch springform pan (one used for cheesecakes) and “fill” with your soaked cake pieces. Try to get this even as possible.
4. Place top layer over “filling” and cover with plastic wrap, the plastic touching the top of the cake. I placed my cleaned cake pan over the top of this and weighed it down with jars from the fridge. The reason I did this was to make sure that the cake was flat, number one, but also I wanted some of the “juice” from the middle to seep into the top and bottom layer, thereby binding the cake together.
5. Place in fridge overnight (make sure it’s covered). The next day, frost the top and cover with sprinkles.