Southern Pumpkin Cake Recipe
Fresh Packed Pumpkin or Homemade Puree Makes This Cake Stand Out
Sep 30, 2009
When the pumpkins in the patch begin to turn orange and the days get cooler, Southern cooks enjoy making a variety of fall dishes featuring pumpkin. Actually the Halloween pumpkins (or cow pumpkins as they may be called in the South) are not the best for cooking. The darker orange and small sugar pumpkins or sweet pumpkins are the traditional cooking pumpkins. When using Jack-o-lantern pumpkins to make puree for cooking, Southern cooks typically add a little more of the seasonings like cinnamon and nutmeg and so on.
There are many different ways cooks use pumpkin in Southern dishes, but one favorite is Pumpkin Cake. Not only does pumpkin add great flavor to the cake, it also adds a nice dark orange color. Pumpkin cake looks a bit like carrot cake and can be frosted with cream cheese icing as is common with carrot cakes. But, pumpkin cake is wonderful served plain with a cup of hot coffee or hot chocolate on a cool fall or winter day.
Soutnern Pumpkin Cake Recipe
Ingredients:
- 3 cups sugar
- 1 cup vegetable oil
- 3 eggs (large makes a moist cake)
- 1 can of or 2 cups of pumpkin (not the pumpkin pie mix — just regular pumpkin)
- 1 tsp. Baking soda
- ½ tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp. Salt
- ½ tsp. Nutmeg
- 1 tsp. Cloves
- 1 tsp. Cinnamon
- 3 cups plain flour
- 1 cup raisins (optional - but very good)
- 1 cup nuts (optional - but very good)
Directions:
- Cream together sugar and vegetable oil in a large mixing bowl until light anf fluffy.
- Beat eggs lightly in a small bowl and then mix in with butter/sugar.
- Add canned regular pumpkin or homemade pumpkin puree and mix with other ingredients.
- Combine baking soda, baking powder, salt, nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, and flour. These can be sifted, but it's also fine to stir them well in a medium bowl.
- Add the flour mxiced with seasoning mixture to the butter mixture.
- Hand stir in 1 generous cup of raisins and 1 cup of nuts if you like. These don't have to be added, but the cake is really good when you add them. It also gives some contrast to the rich orange color.
- Grease and very lightly flour a pound cake tube pan or bundt cake pan. You can also put a little wax paper in the bottom to help ensure the cake does not stick, since it's pretty moist.
- Bake cake in a greased pound cake pan at 350 for 1 hour and 25 minutes. A bundt pan also makes a pretty presentation.
More Tasty Pumpkin Recipes:
Pumpkin Puree - Don't toss out your Halloween jack-o-lantern. A Halloween pumpkin can be cooked down and used to make pumpkin puree. It does take some work and effort, but the extra can be frozen and used for pumpkin recipes during the holiday season.
Pumpkin Drop Cookies - Kids (and adults too) love pumpkin cookies. The Southern cookies are soft and moist and full of great pumpkin flavor.
Pumpkin Bread - Along the lines of banana bread, pumpkin bread is a nice change of pace and has a different look with the beautiful orange spice color. Pumpkin bread is yummy with butter or with cream cheese.
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