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Spiced Pumpkin Ginger Cake with Caramelized Pears
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Provided By:
Paul Grimes

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    • This towering cake is visually impressive, but it's the heady autumnal combination of pumpkin, cream cheese frosting, and caramelized pears that will have your guests raving.

    Ingredients

    Serves:

      • FOR CAKE:
      • 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
      • 2 teaspoons baking powder
      • 1 teaspoon baking soda
      • 1 teaspoon ginger powder
      • 1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
      • 1/2 teaspoon madras curry powder
      • 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
      • 1/4 teaspoon salt
      • 1 cup pumpkin puree
      • 2/3 cup buttermilk
      • 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
      • 1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened, plus additional for buttering pans
      • 1 1/4 cup light brown sugar
      • 3/4 cup sugar
      • 3 large eggs
      • 1/3 cup finely chopped crystallized ginger
      • FOR PEARS:
      • 5 Bosc pears, (about 2 pounds), peeled, cored and coarsely chopped into 1/2-inch pieces
      • 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
      • 3 tablespoons dark rum
      • 2 tablespoons sugar
      • FOR FROSTING:
      • 8 ounces cream cheese
      • 1/2 stick (4 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened
      • 3 tablespoons pumpkin puree
      • 1 tablespoon dark rum
      • 2 teaspoons lemon juice
      • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
      • 4 cups confectioners sugar
      • Equipment: 3 (8-inch) square or round non-stick baking pans; a small offset spatula

    Directions

    Put racks in middle and lower third positions and preheat oven to 350F.

    MAKE CAKES:
    Butter baking pans, then chill pans until butter is firm. Dust pans with flour, then invert and tap pans to rid excess flour. Refrigerate until ready to use.

    Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, curry, clove, and salt into a bowl and reserve.

    Whisk together pumpkin, buttermilk, and vanilla in another bowl and reserve.

    Beat butter, brown sugar, and white sugar in a large bowl with a hand-held or stand mixer until smooth and creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition, until just incorporated.

    At a lower speed, add one-third of flour mixture, alternating with half of buttermilk mixture and ending with flour mixture, mixing until smooth after each addition. Stir in crystallized ginger.

    Divide batter evenly between the 3 prepared pans. Smooth top of batter with a small offset spatula. Tap cake pans gently on work surface to eliminate air bubbles. Bake cakes, rotating pans half way through baking, until a skewer inserted in center of cake comes out clean, 30 to 35 minutes.

    Let cakes cool in pans, on a rack, 30 minutes. Invert cakes on to racks and let cool completely, 30 minutes more.

    COOK PEARS:
    While cakes cool, saute pears in butter until just beginning to brown, about 5 minutes. Add rum, sugar, lemon juice, and salt and cook over high heat until pears are tender and juices are deep golden brown, 5 to 8 minutes. Reserve.

    MAKE FROSTING:
    Beat cream cheese, softened butter, pumpkin, rum, lemon juice, lemon zest, and vanilla in a bowl with a hand-held or stand mixer until smooth. Add confectioners sugar, cup by cup, continuously beating, until frosting is smooth and creamy, about 5 minutes.

    What do you think?

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    2 Comments

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    tanaq

    Lemon zest is mentioned in the instructions, but not in the ingredient list--how much is recommended? Directions on assembly would definitely be useful. The pear filling started to drip and ooze down the outside of the cake. It was tasty, but messy.

    November 26 2010 at 1:44 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
    erlybird54

    This looks interesting. It would help if there were instructions on assembling the cake. Cake/frosting/pears. Repeat? Everything is not obvious. Cook the pears until tender. Will there be liquid left over? Is that used?

    October 21 2010 at 10:51 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply

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