Easy Pumpkin Spice & Pecan Bundt Cake

Move over Starbucks — I have Pumpkin Spice Cake, too. Midwestern homemakers are the best cooks. And, this recipe, “Easy Pumpkin Spice & Pecan Bumdt Cake” is an example of an old-fashioned midwest Bundt cake. We all need great autumn pumpkin recipes — and this cake is at the top of my list. The cake has a pleasing blend of pumpkin spices — but the spices don’t overwhelm the cake. There is just enough taste of pumpkin flavor. And, my recipe includes toasted pecans which, in my opinion, turned out to be the star of the cake. This Bundt cake recipe is unique — it is very dense — because the ingredient list uses oil rather than butter. No way to beat air into the batter!! However, the cake is still moist. My cake is mightly close to copycat recipes of Starbuck’s Pumpkin Spice Loaf Cakes. Move over — Starbucks. The best thing about this recipe is that it is a “one bowl” cake — mixed up by hand in a large bowl. No electric mixer is needed for this one. Mixing up the cake batter goes quickly, especially using canned pumpkin pulp.

MIdwest Farm Recipes

Back in the day, when family farms were “king,” usually the wife held up the domestic end of the partnership. All the cooking was “from scratch,” as the farms were self-contained enterprises. No fast food restaurants way back then. So the recipes which these women cooked up were absolutely delicious. The recipe for my “Easy Pumpkin Spice & Pecan Bundt Cake” is adapted from one in a cookbook given to me from my friend who is diligently down-sizing her cookbook shelf. This cookbook is devoted entirely to Bundt cakes and it was authored by a midwest cook. The author claimed that this is one of her best Bundt cakes. Hum….we’ll see.

Bundt Cake Cookbook and Bundt Cake Pan Trivia

The Bundt cake cookbook is titled, “Bundt Cake Blizz.” Published in 2007, this recipe book belongs on my “vintage” cookbook shelf. And, I still have an original Bundt Cake pan — inherited from my mother. She probably had this cake pan in the 1960s when Bundt cakes were the current craze. These cake pans must be undestructable. The recipe book was authored by Susuanna Short, a midwest cook from Minnesota. The taste testers were the numerous folks and family members who sampled all her cakes at covered dish suppers and family meals. The book features an introduction by Dotty and H. David Dalquist, the developers of the original cast-aluminum ring pans, named Bundt Cake Pans. This couple was the owner of the Nordic Ware cookware company in Minnesota.

The Dalquists developed the Bundt cake pan in 1950 to simulate traditional round Euorpean Jewish cakes known as “Gugelfuph.”There was quite a large Jewish settlement in Wisconson and Minnesota with the folks coming from Ukraine, Poland and Germany in the late 1800s. (This includes my mother-in-law’s family. Her grandfather was smuggled out of Ukraine (Russia) in an ice chest in the 1880s during the programs. He ended up in Milwaukee, Wisconson.) I’m sure there was quite a market for the round, fluted cake pans in this area of the country. The Bundt pan took off with the general public after publicity from Pillsbury and General Foods promoted cakes baked in the pan. The cakes gained widespread popularity and became a national sensation in 1966 after a “Tunnel of Fudge” cake baked in it won second place in the national Pillsbury Bake-Off.

Ingredients:

Here are the ingredients for the cake. It is basically a “one bowl” recipe — no electric mixer is needed. Note that the ingredient list contains oil — and not butter. Hence, there is no way for air to be beaten and incorporated into the cake batter. This is an extremely dense cake.

Pumpkin pulp. This recipe uses canned pumpkin puree — not pumpkin pie filling with all the spices. This particular brand is organic and contains only pumpkin pulp — no added sugar or preservatives. And, the pulp is nice and thick — not waterly. I really like this new brand. I used only one cup (1/2 the can) in my final recipe.

Pecans. Toasted pecans give this pumpkin spice a nice aromatic “twist.” These toasted nuts really turned out to be the best part of this recipe. Pecans are a Louisiana product. Sometimes I can find the nuts on sale after the Christmas holiday season is over. I’ll purchase a few bags and freeze them. To refresh — just toast them in the oven for 5 minutes at 350 degrees. Then remove from oven and immediately transfer from the baking pan. (They continue to roast and will burn.) The aromatic, toasted nuts give the kitchen a wonderful, autuum ambience.

Chop finely. I use a large chef’s knife and cut with a rocking motion. Hey, now we know why knives are curved.

Spices. This recipe uses the full range of autumn spices. I used all of them. Keep in mind that cloves are intense in flavor — This recipe includes just a small amount.

Making the recipe

Oil the large Bundt cake pan. I used vegetable oil and quite generously spread the oil into all the crooks and crevices of the Bundt pan.

This is essentially a “one-bowl” recipe. Well, actually two bowls. Mix the flour, baking powder, salt and spices in a large bowl. Stir and stir and stir to get all the ingredients evenly mixed. Who likes a large bite of cloves in their piece of cake? This is often overlooked but it is a very important step in making a spice cake.

In another large bowl, add the pumpkin pulp, eggs, oil and vanilla extract. Stir and stir to mix up the eggs and all the ingredients. (I used a wire whip.)

Stir in the sugar.

Add half the flour mixture to the pumpkin pulp mixture and beat to combine well. (However, don’t overbeat.) Then add all the milk; followed by the rest of the flour.

Stir in pecans and pour into oiled Bundt cake pan.

Bake cake for 45 minutes — 50 minutes if needed — until cake springs back and pulls away from edges. A toothpick inserted into middle should come up with moist cake — not wet batter.

Let cool in cake pan until it can be managed — at least 15 minutes — and then invert it onto a serving plate.

Icing the cake

This cake benefits when topped with a powdered sugar glaze. I simply combined powdered sugar and milk to form a thick glaze.

Drizzle over the cake. As the cake cools, the icing becomes more transparent.

What do I think of this cake recipe? This recipe is a great autumn dessert. It has great flavor — the spices, pecans and pumpkin meld together. Nothing is over-powdering. With my adjustments, the cake is moist and slightly dense — it has more “lift” which you would expect in a cake.

So, I’ll rate the “Buntz Cake Bizz” cookbook A+. I see several other interesting recipes to try later.

So, move over, Starbucks. No need to get in the auto and travel to this coffee establishment to find a great piece of pumpkin spice cake. We. have just made it at home — the old-fashioned, homemade way.

Enjoy!