Pumpkin Cake

This is an old recipe I have had for a long time and recently dug it out for a requested birthday cake. We have made it a few times since and it seems to be a crowd pleaser. One of my biggest pet peeves is dry cake. I hate it. This one is not. The pumpkin really makes it nice and moist.

Before I type out the recipe, and before I'm tempted to take more credit than what is due me...I gladly admit that my wife is a cake decorator from way back (sorry hon, not that far back...). She doesn't get to do it much these days, but she is very good at it. Which is a great thing, since I love to cook and bake and share recipes, but I do not decorate. She make my stuff look better.

Here we go:

Cake:

2 C of sugar

1 C vegetable oil I do have an old olive oil cake recipe I need to dig up again)

4 large eggs

2 C AP flour

2 t baking soda

1 t baking powder

2 t cinnamon

1 t ginger (ground, powdered)

1/2 t salt

2 C pumpkin puree

Preheat oven to 350°. Grease (I used butter) and flour 2 9" rounds (I use spring forms). Mix the sugar, oil, eggs, and salt, thoroughly. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and ginger, stir. Slowly, with the mixer on low, start adding dry ingredients. Scrape at least once, but don't over mix as cake batters can get tough. Add pumpkin, mix on low, scrape, and mix a little more. Pour into the 2 prepared pans and bake for 35-45 minutes or until slightly browned with a concave top and toothpick comes out clean. 

Frosting:

1 stick butter, room temp (1/4 lb, 1/2 c)

1/4 c shortening

1, 8 oz brick cream cheese (Philadelphia has better consistency and taste)

1 1/2 t vanilla

2 lbs powdered sugar

1/4 t salt

Colored course sugar crystals optional (as you see in the pic, we used gold)

Mix all ingredients on low, scrape at least once.

We typically do a 2-layer, but we did a 4-layer this time. If you do what we did you will need at least 1 1/2 to 2 times the frosting recipe. My wife did the decorating, as I said, and it looked great. It also tasted great. You will also need to cut the curved top layer off to make it level, see pic below.

In this particular cake, we used some leftover salted caramel I had just made and separated the frosting into plain and caramel. See the 2 colors above. That recipe can be found in an earlier post, "Salted Caramel".

Buon Appetito!