Pat's Pumpkin Bundt Cake

This recipe comes to us from my cherished, Jewel-Osco 100 Years of Fresh Family Favorites cookbook. I added the cream chesse-ish frosting because serving a plain cake around here would have them thinking I was angry or something. The wailing, "What did we do wrong?! No frosting?Please don't beat us mummy..."

This is the sort of thing you (I) bake when baking seems like a bit of an effort. It isn't quite as simple as the delightfully named, "Dump Cake" but it is pretty easy. I'm sure it was the most difficult recipe in the collection as it didn't start with a mix, or involve Cool Whip. Or 7-Up. Or Jell-O. "Poke Cake" sounds pretty awful as well.

I blame the fact that I even considered, let alone baked this cake on Brian Francis at Caker Cooking.
http://cakercooking.blogspot.com/

I also blame him for the Cool Whip and carton of orange sherbet sitting in my freezer, but we'll get to that in a later post. While this is bordering on a "bit fancy" as caker baking goes, the cookbook from which it hails has "Church Basement" written across it in robin's egg blue eyeliner. I can't wait to make "Lazy Pierogi" which is a noodles and a tin of  sauerkraut (and some other stuff) in a casserole.

 

Look deeply into the dark mystery of the Bundt Cake. I see terrible things. Terrrrible things. Mostly calories, but fuck off, I'm recuperating-I need those calories.

So, Pat's Pumpkin Bundt Cake (which is next to Patti's Ho Ho Cake) is easy to make because you pour an entire cup of salad oil into it (no creaming butter and sugar together here). The eggs need not be separated, and don't tell anyone, but I used a large bowl and tossed in all the dry ingredients at once (I'm a radical, I tell you). I never bothered to sift. I want that on my headstone when I die, by the way.

And all is well! The invalid (that's me) baked a cake, everyone sighed in relief that we're semi back to normal, and for the five minutes it took putting together, it came out sorta nice. I made a couple changes exchanging mixed spice for cinnamon (because the mixed spice was at the front of the cabinet, and I would have had to dig for the cinnamon) and I only had 1/2 a cup of brown sugar and was too lazy to stand and mush molasses into granulated sugar to make up the rest-so I used 1 1/2 cups white. Skipped the nuts too, obviously.

You Will Need:

4 large eggs
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 cups tinned pumpkin
1 cup vegetable oil
2 cups plain flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon (I used mixed spice)
1/2 cup chopped nut (skipped it)
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract (also skipped it-because I was out and it would take three minutes to drive to the grocery store from my house)

Grease and flour a Bundt pan. In a large bowl, beat the eggs until foamy. Add the sugars, alternating with the oil. Mix well. Add the pumpkin and mix well. Add your dry ingredients. Mix well. Pour into pan. Bake 1 hour. That's enough time to set your hair, or read the weekly sales circulars.

To unmould:

Let cool in pan on a rack for 15 minutes. Give the pan a good thwack on the counter. Unmould. When cool, ice as desired. I used about 3 tablespoons cream cheese, 2 cups icing sugar, and enough milk to make it (sort of) spread. I'm sure you could come up with something better.

Hey, everybody Mama made Cake!