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Thursday, October 15, 2009

Pumpkin Cake





From the kitchen of One Perfect Bite...This is an old cake from one of Maida Heatter's first cookbooks. It's a lightly spiced pumpkin cake that's chock full of nuts and macerated raisins. The raisins are soaked in dark rum for an hour or so before being added to the cake batter. Raisins plumped in this fashion aren't necessary, but they add a lovely adult touch to an otherwise simple cake. Apple juice could also be used. I like this cake because it's easy to assemble, needs no special equipment to make and uses no exotic ingredients, save for the rum which is optional. When my children were small, I loved to make this cake for them, sans rum of course. It's only mildly sweet and the raisins and nuts add some nutritional value to otherwise empty calories. I did, however, have one child who would confound me. To this day, a raisin has never passed her lips. By the time she finished pulling raisins from this cake or a slice of raisin bread they'd look like Flemish lace. It was the habit years ago to serve this cake with a ginger flavored whipped cream. It's still a lovely garnish, but I prefer to keep things really simple and use a dusting of confectioners' sugar to finish the cake. Here's the recipe.

Pumpkin Cake...from the kitchen of One Perfect Bite courtesy of Maida Heatter

Ingredients:
3 cups sifted all--purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon powdered ginger
1/4 teaspoon powdered cloves
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup raisins, macerated in rum or apple juice for an hour, then drained and patted dry
3 1/2 ounces (1 cup) walnuts, broken into medium-size pieces
2 cups plain pumpkin puree
2 cups sugar
1-1/4 cups safflower oil, corn oil, or other salad oil (not olive oil)
4 large eggs
Optional: Confectioners sugar

Directions:
1) Adjust rack one-third up from bottom of oven and preheat to 350 degrees. Butter a 10 x 4-1/2 inch tube pan. Line bottom with paper cut to fit and butter paper.
2) Sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, nutmeg, allspice, and salt. Add a tablespoon of sifted dry ingredients to raisins in a small bowl. With your fingers, toss raisins to separate them and coat each one with the dry ingredients. Stir in nuts and set aside.
3) In large bowl of electric mixer, place pumpkin, sugar, and oil. Beat at medium speed until smooth. Add eggs individually, beating after each until incorporated.
4) On low speed add sifted dry ingredients, beating only until smooth. Remove from mixer. Stir in raisins and nuts. Turn into prepared pan. Rotate pan briskly to level top.
5) Bake 1 hour and 5 minutes or until a cake tester comes out dry. Cool on a rack for about 10 minutes. The baked cake will only fill about three-quarters of pan.
6) Cover cake with a rack and invert. Remove pan and paper. Cover with another rack and invert again. Cool right side up on the rack.
8) When cool, top may be dusted with confectioners sugar sifted through a fine mesh strainer.
Serve as is or with a generous spoonful of whipped cream. Yield: 10 to 12 servings.

45 comments:

  1. Oh yes I was looking forward to this post Mary. A little cooked rum never hurt anyone. No alcohol left by that point.
    It is really a recipe that I will make. I can taste it now.

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  2. This is a recipe for a cake I know all the men in our family will really love. I just got done shopping for the ingredients for your cranberry dressing recipe. I have been craving it since I read it here. This is the time of year it is great to be inside baking and I am getting ready for a lot of it!( baking and cranberry dressing)

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  3. Every time I read her name I see Mad Hatter. Is it just me? :)
    I love the simplicity of this cake, and the gorgeous colour. So nice with tea. (which, you might have noticed, is my litmus test for loaves and cakes!)

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  4. Oh, I do so love to cook and I love changing recipes with the seasons. This pumpkin cake is just the thing for me to try, but I need to go get a tube pan. I still don't have one.

    Today I baked an artisan bread - sour dough. My friend came over and taught me the techniques and I'm excited to try it on my own.

    Ah, food..I can never understand people who just look at it as "fuel" (some sports people I knwo) and not as a pleasure.

    Ciao!

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  5. You're on a pumpkin roll! (no pun intended, haha)

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  6. This is so timely! I brought home some canned pack pumpkin the other day and have been looking for a recipe ever since. I think this one is it!!

    Yum!

    Now I have to find my tube pan. he heh.

    Thanks Mary!

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  7. PS

    I'm not a fan of rum, so I think I'll soak the raisins in brandy.

    J.

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  8. oh how I wish I had a piecce of this right now.....Yum

    Just out blog hopping on tonight...really should be working... Hope you will stop by my Christmas blog and leave your favorite Christmas song...and enter a great giveaway. Also, a birthday letter to my daughter on my main blog...http://teresa-grammygirlfriend.blogspot.com/
    http://grammyababychangeseverything.blogspot.com

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  9. This sounds so good, I'll try it for sure. The story about your child taking out the raisins is classic. Don't we all have one child who will do that?
    vickie

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  10. LOL about the raisins. I used to be the same way and have since acquired a taste for them.

    Thank you for sharing this delightful recipe. It looks like a nice recipe to share with my family and friends who aren't real keen on real sweet.

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  11. What a wonderful recipe. I can tell from the ingredients that this is a real keeper. Thanks for sharing.

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  12. Mary, I just read your comment you left for me...and you mentioned 'word verification'...I have always had my blog comment settings to not have it...there is no verification for visitors on my blog. Hmmmmm.

    But, your comment DID show the other day on B O's political.

    Now....talking about your pumpkin cake....Mmmmmmmmm. Y'know something? Your photography is excellent too! Why, just the photos you have here are always so perfect...along with the "perfect bite".

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  13. October is pumpkin -- bread, pie, cake . . . . even cookies! It's a lovely flavor and oh, so seasonal!

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  14. Good morning Mary. I think this cake looks heavenly delicious. I have never thought of soaking raisins in rum. I love the idea and I already have the dark rum. We bought rum on a cruise 25 years ago. Obviously we are not drinkers. LOL. Thank you for the recipe.

    Hugs, Jeanne

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  15. Looks like great fun! Keep up your great work on this page!
    COMMON CENTS
    http://www.commoncts.blogspot.com

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  16. Looks wonderful. Aren't we having fun with pumpkin this month? Love all the recipes. Your cake is truly lovely.

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  17. Mary... the color of this cake is awesome! I am absolutely going to make this for Thanksgiving. Thanks...

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  18. Jeanne, the cake will be even better with a well aged rum :-)

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  19. Our daughters share the disgust of raisins! But that just meant more for me...can't wait to try this great recipe!

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  20. wow, this looks SO good. im a sucker for anything pumpkin.

    do you suppose it would work with butternut squash, or yams as well?

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  21. It sounds terrific Mary! I love pumpkin everything and I love rasins so I shall try this. Have a lovely fall day.

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  22. Yum, yum, yum!! :) This looks so good! Karen

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  23. I know!!!! so many who don't like raisins! When I did catering the orders for the Irish Soda bread w/o raisins surprised me!
    This cake looks wonderful, and I'll have a dollop of fresh whipped cream with mine please!

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  24. Dee, I don't see why they couldn't be used in place of the pumpkin. It might be a sweeter cake with the sweet potato, but having never tries it I can't be sure.

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  25. This looks like a good recipe. We were raised Catholic back when you had to fast for 12 hours before receiving communion. One Sunday morning one of my sisters ate a raisin. ONE raisin. My Mom called the convent to see if she could still receive communion... the nun said no. Haha. One raisin. Oh, my.

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  26. As always, I love your stories... I am afraid I agree with your picky child about the raisins.... It;s the texture that does me in

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  27. It looks so moist and delicious Mary. I love pumpkin cake.

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  28. This does sound good. Although both my kids are the same way about raisins.

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  29. I have roasted pureed pumpkin in my freezer just waiting for something as nice as this, only I'm going to spread a little of your pumpkin butter on top.

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  30. Thanks Mary! This is just the recipe to try since my family doesn't really like the sweet stuff that I tend to get most of the time from other cake recipes. Can't wait to try this.

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  31. Such a gorgeous cake! So moist and tasty with all those spices!

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  32. This sounds delicious!! But do you think I could go for it in the Budnt pan I already own, instead of buying a tube pan?

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  33. I just made the pumpkin cake. It's going into permanent rotation. Delicious!!

    I baked in in a glass 9x13 pan sprayed with Baker's Joy, and the raisins, soaked in Brandy, soaked all night (due to the chef becoming tired), otherwise I followed all your directions. It's fabulous!! mmmmmmmm

    Jules

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  34. I have a question for you. Can I grease and flour the pan or do I have to only grease it and line the bottom with wax paper as you say?
    Joyce

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  35. Hi Joyce, I ducked over to your blog to answer the questions as I didn't know if you'd come back here.

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  36. Such a lovely colour! Looks so moist and sounds really tasty!

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  37. It looks perfect, and tast good.
    Let's try to do this.
    thanks

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  38. Hi there! I made a pumpkin cake today following this recipe. I had to work around 1 cup of pumpkin puree because that's how much my small pumpkin yielded - it turned out v well. Also, I substituted the apple juice/rum with 'mixed fruit juice' as that's what I had readily available - looks like this is the perfect recipe - and I'm a novice baker so you can imagine how thrilled I was that my cake actually held its shape.

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  39. Hey Mary,
    do u think I can use same amount of butter instead of oil?? thankx a ton!

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  40. Abhi, not in this cake. Stick with the oil.

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  41. I made this as cupcakes last year for my daughter's birthday, a big hit! My uncle, who worships at the chocolate altar, preferred these to the chocolate offering. Fast forward a year: I just spent the last hour searching food blogs for this recipe, cursing my disorganization the whole time. I gave up, pulled out my Joy of Cooking, and saw that I had scribbled the recipe on a scrap sheet tucked into the cover. Joy, indeed!

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