Pumpkin-Pecan-Bourbon Cake

This year's Thanksgiving marks one of the few where I sat at a real dining table, lines of silverware wedged between birch sprigs and butter dishes. Normally, due to the overflow of relatives (honorary and blood), most of my generation is relegated to the kids table. There, we tuck our legs under ourselves and crowd plates onto a coffee table set up just far enough from the grownups that we hear only snatches of wine-warmed conversation (always our names, never the context in which they arise). Now, as new families spring up and smart new careers solidify, people are sent off and away from the Midwest that knitted our friendships and felt our first steps. So we represent the holiday's missing attendees in toasts and scattered updates offered throughout the evening. And each explanation for someone's absence is relayed in a slightly different manner depending on who tells the story, so that by the night's end, no one is terribly clear about what anyone is doing, but they're well assured that those who are absent have got themselves perfectly situated. They're also represented in recollections of Thanksgivings past, to which we'll add this one, remembering only the good parts and forgetting that we really ought to double the batch of gravy next year.

So we were a small group. But a small group is no reason not to make a tall, tall cake. A tall cake of pumpkin and pecan and most of the spice rack's contents, crowned with a bourbon glaze and more pecans. There will leftover glaze—eat it on everything. Prepare to gather and use a lot of ingredients, including what I believe amounts to an entire bag of brown sugar. But you'll be pleased with the result. As will the rest of the party, whatever their number. 

Adapted from Fine Cooking's Pumpkin-Pecan Cake with Brown Sugar and Bourbon Glaze

Pumpkin-Pecan-Bourbon Cake

Ingredients:

For cake

3 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour (plus a little extra for the pan)

2 tsp. baking powder

2 tsp. ginger

2 tsp. cinnamon

1 1/4 tsp. salt

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg

1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature (plus a little extra for the pan)

1/2 cup vegetable oil

2 1/2 cups brown sugar

4 large eggs

3/4 cup buttermilk

3 TBSP bourbon

1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

1 15-oz can pumpkin puree

1 cup pecan halves, toasted and chopped

For candied pecans

2 TBSP brown sugar

1 TBSP honey

3/4 cup pecans, roughly chopped

For glaze

3/4 cup dark brown sugar

1/2 cup unsalted butter

2 TBSP corn syrup

1 1/2 TBSP bourbon

1/3 cup light whipping cream

1 1/4 cups powdered sugar

1/8 tsp. vanilla extract

Directions:

Make the Cake

--Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and flour a 10- to 12-cup bundt or tube pan. 

--Mix together dry ingredients. In a large bowl, cream together butter, oil, and sugar. Add eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. In a measuring cup, stir together buttermilk, bourbon, and vanilla extract.

--Add flour and buttermilk mixtures to the butter batter, alternating between dry and wet. Stir in pumpkin puree and pecans with a wooden spoon or spatula. Pour into prepared pan and bake for 45 to 55 minutes, or until a knife stuck into the cake's center comes out clean. 

--Let cake cool in pan for at least 15 minutes. Slide a knife between the cake's edge and the pan and invert onto a plate, removing the pan very slowly and gently.

Make Candied Pecans (this can be done while the cake bakes).

--Cook brown sugar, honey, and 1 TBSP water in a small saucepan over medium heat until the sugar has dissolved. Add pecans and stir to coat. Cook on medium-low heat for 15 minutes or until pecans are shiny and most of the sugar mixture clings to the pecans.

Make the Glaze (again, this can be done while the cake bakes)

--To a medium saucepan, add the brown sugar, butter, corn syrup, bourbon, and salt. Cook over medium heat until butter melts and the sugar dissolves. Pour in the cream and boil for one minute, stirring occasionally. Remove from the heat and whisk in sugar and extract, stirring until mixture is smooth. Let stand three to eight minutes: glaze should be thick, but pourable.

Assemble

--Scatter candied pecans across the top of the cake. Using a skewer, poke holes into the cake's sides. Pour the glaze over the cake, letting it run down the sides and into the tunnels created by the skewer. Keep any extra glaze for spooning onto individual slices.