Spiced Pumpkin Cake - Wolfgang Puck Seafood Recipe
Spiced Pumpkin Cake

No one loves pumpkin pie more than I do, but sometimes it's fun to try an even easier pumpkin sweet, such as the cake below.

Pumpkin is used in many dishes all over the world, but aside from a few Middle Eastern desserts of cubes of sweetened pumpkin, most of them are savory recipes. We Americans are among the few who love elaborate pumpkin sweets.

It has become stylish to use fresh pumpkin for pies and cakes, but unless you use an pie pumpkin, you'll get a watery puree that's low in pumpkin flavor. For this reason, I prefer to use canned pumpkin, which also makes it possible to prepare this cake when fresh pumpkins aren't in season. If you absolutely have to use a fresh vegetable, then use cooked, pureed winter squash (but not spaghetti squash) or baked, peeled and pureed sweet potatoes.

On to the pumpkin cake: This one is so easy, you don't even need an electric mixer to prepare it. If you don't have a tube pan, bake the batter in a 9-by-13-by-2-inch pan and cut it in squares to serve. And you can bake it a few days in advance; wrap and refrigerate the cake, and bring it to room temperature before serving. You'll find yourself becoming a pumpkin addict like me.

Spiced Pumpkin Cake Recipe

Pureed pumpkin makes a wonderfully moist cake, and I particularly love this version of because it echoes the flavors of a pumpkin pie, which is near the top of my list of favorite desserts. Thanks to my dear friend, baking teacher and author Carole Walter, for allowing me to adapt this recipe from her book "Great Cakes" (Ballantine Books, 1992), for which I wrote the preface.

Makes one 10-inch Bundt or tube cake, about 16 servings.

3 cups all-purpose flour (spoon flour into dry-measure cup and level off)

1 cup granulated sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

2 teaspoons baking soda

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

2 teaspoons ground ginger

2 teaspoons freshly grated nutmeg

1 cup light brown sugar, firmly packed

2 cups (1 pound) canned pumpkin puree

5 large eggs

1 1/4 cups vegetable oil

Powdered sugar, optional

Sweetened whipped cream, optional

One 10-inch (16-cup) Bundt pan, buttered, coated with dry breadcrumbs and sprayed with vegetable cooking spray

1. Set a rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat to 350 F.

2. Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and spices in a medium bowl and whisk to mix; set aside.

3. Place the brown sugar in a mixing bowl and use a large rubber spatula to work in about one-third of the pumpkin a little at a time, until there are no lumps of brown sugar. Use a whisk to incorporate the remaining pumpkin, the eggs and the oil, adding them one at a time and stirring to combine between additions.

4. Whisk in the dry ingredients a third at a time.

5. Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake until well risen and the point of a knife inserted between the edge of the pan and the central tube emerges clean, 60 to 70 minutes.

6. Let the cake stand in the pans for 5 minutes, then unmold to a rack and cool completely.

7. Wrap and freeze the layers for up to one month if you don't intend to use them immediately.

8. Serve the cake with powdered sugar sprinkled on the top, and/or with some sweetened whipped cream. Store under a cake dome or wrap in plastic and freeze for longer storage.

 

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Spiced Pumpkin Cake - Nick Malgieri Recipes

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