Most people seem to think pie is the perfect Thanksgiving dessert but when it comes to pumpkin, I tend to think the flavor is best featured in a cake. Yes, that may be blasphemy to you but if you’re ever going to give it a shot, this is the cake to do it with.
This cake starts in a bundt cake pan (mine is cathedral shaped
Since this is a bundt cake, it’s easy to see where to cut the cake and it’s a gorgeous piece to serve. I topped my cake with some crushed pecans and my slice got a sprinkle of coconut too. You can easily make this cake up to 3 days before your big Thanksgiving meal so it works great with my Thanksgiving cooking timeline.
I found this recipe via Gourmet Magazine's 2005 Thanksgiving edition. I've made a few changes (specifically doubling spices and adding a maple glaze) but the cake itself is a warm spicy flavor perfect for Thanksgiving dinner.
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) unsalted butter, softened
- 2 1/4 cups flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
- 2 teaspoons ground allspice
- 1/2 teaspoon ginger
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/4 cups canned solid-pack pumpkin (less than a 15-ounce can; not pie filling)
- 3/4 cup well-shaken buttermilk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 1/4 cups sugar
- 3 large eggs
- 2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon well-shaken buttermilk
- 1 teaspoon maple extract
- 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
Instructions
- Grease a bundt cake pan generously and set aside.
- Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, allspice, ginger, and salt in a bowl. Stir together pumpkin, buttermilk, and vanilla in another bowl.
- Beat butter and sugar in a mixer on medium until pale and fluffy. Add in eggs and beat 1 minute. Reduce speed to low and add flour and pumpkin mixtures alternately in batches, beginning and ending with flour mixture and mixing until batter is just smooth.
- Spoon batter into pan and bake at 350 for 50 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool cake in pan on a rack 15 minutes, then invert rack over cake and reinvert cake onto rack. Cool 10 minutes more.
- While cake is cooling, whisk together buttermilk, maple extract and powdered sugar until smooth. Drizzle icing over warm cake, then cool cake completely. Icing will harden slightly.
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