more traveling desserts: spiced pumpkin bundt cake

There are some amazing cookbooks in my kitchen just waiting for me to work through them, Julie & Julia style.  One of my favorites that begs me to try something new any time I browse through it over lunch or dinner at my kitchen island, is "Chicken and Egg, A Memoir of Suburban Homesteading".  That chicken farmer girl has some lovely recipes all using chicken, eggs or both.  When my work pal, Shannon,  decided to raise chickens in downtown Indy,  I bought her a copy and recently the two of us have had a bit of a bake-off going.  She made the brown sugar apple custard pie with a brown sugar cinnamon crust (right?) and I baked the spiced pumpkin cake but did not make the warm caramel sauce to go with it since mine was going to a tailgate.  This is all very good news for our other lululemons when there are leftovers.

This cake clearly was going to be moist with oil and four eggs and it was clearly going to be nicely spiced with generous quantities of all the good pumpkin spices, you can just tell.  I set out on a walk with mine in the oven and when I came back that oven was on "hold" and the cake was still good.  One of the things I like about this cookbook is it's organized by seasons.  I always look forward to bringing my cooking back in the house and heating up the ovens.  We are having a gorgeous Fall here in central Indiana.  Honestly, we were owed a good Fall after a brutal hot and dry Summer.  The grass is lush and green and needing mowing again and the trees just look relieved.  Me too.

Spiced Pumpkin Bundt Cake

Cake
3 1/4 C flour
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp ground allspice
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp kosher salt
2 /34 C sugar
1 C canola oil
4 eggs
1 15-oz. can solid-pack pumpkin

Icing
2 C confectioner's sugar
1 T softened unsalted butter
1/2 tsp cinnamon
3-4 T milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Generously grease a 12-cup bundt pan with non-stick cooking spray, lightly sprinkle with flour and shake to coat tapping out excess flour.

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, cinnamon, baking powder, cloves, nutmeg, allspice, baking soda and salt.  In the bowl of a stand mixer beat together the sugar and oil at low speed.  Add the eggs, one at a time,  beating well after each addition.  Beat in pumpkin.  Slowly add the flour mixture, beating just until blended.  Pour batter into prepared pan.  Bake 55-60 minutes or until a tester comes out clean.  Cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10 min.  Invert onto wire rack, remove pan and cool completely.

Stir together confectioner's sugar, butter, cinnamon and 3 T of milk.  Add more milk if needed to get proper icing consistency.  Spread across top of cake and let fall down the sides of cake.

Serves 16

ingredients with a focus problem
do I really need to wear my readers to see my camera screen?

dry ingredients (I freshly grate my nutmeg for giggles)

sugar, oil, eggs and pumpkin

inverted to cool

iced and tested for goodness