Eggnog Spice Cake

I always remember eggnog at Christmas when we were little.  I’m not sure why.  I don’t think we had a lot of it but maybe on one Christmas Eve someone served it and it stuck with me.  Another year, when I was much older, we made a huge batch and served it in a punch bowl at a party.  It was remarkably easy to make and oh so delicious.  This year I couldn’t pass it up when I was reaching for milk at the market.  The thing with eggnog is it is super rich.  Too rich to drink a lot of.  So, as to not waste it, we set out to make cake.  If you don’t want your house to smell super cozy and (in our case) Christmassy, this is not the cake for you.  I have a feeling this is going to be our holiday cake from now on.  The smells alone make you wish it were snowing outside and that you were nestled around a fireplace inside where it was warm.  We’ll just have to pretend.  Here in Rhode Island we are definitely not going to have a white Christmas.  More like a 50 degree Christmas.  We’ll still have the fire though.

We found a great cake recipe from Gourmet’s Best Desserts which was published in 1987.  It was for Buttermilk Spice Cake with Caramel Frosting.  We adapted it to become Eggnog Spice Cake with Eggnog Glaze.  The end result? Oh. My. God.  Dense but not like a pound cake.  Sweet but not overly so.  Just simply delicious.

Ingredients:

2 1/4 cups sifted cake flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter

1 teaspoon vanilla

3/4 cups firmly packed light brown sugar

1 cup sugar

3 large eggs

1 cup eggnog

Start by buttering and flouring the cake pan and setting the oven to 350 f.

Into a bowl sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, salt and ground cloves.  Do this three times.

In a large mixer cream the butter and vanilla until fluffy.  Gradually add the brown sugar and then the granulated sugar.  Add the eggs one at a time.  Stir one third of the flour mixture into this and gently stir in.  Add half of the eggnog and again, gently stir.  Repeat until the flour mixture is gone.

Pour the batter into the pan and place into the oven.  Ours cooked for about an hour and fifteen minutes but do keep an eye on it.

When it came out it was very puffy on top (which is really the bottom) so we sliced off the top to invert it onto a cooling rack.  We let it sit there until completely cooled and then we drizzled the powdered sugar/eggnog glaze over the top.  It is that easy.  Using the fancy pan makes it look a little more difficult than it was.  Adding an embellishment like ribbon or a trinket to the top finishes it off.  All we’ll say is that our kids were eagerly awaiting the first slice.  It is such a good cake.  The spicy flavors are so comforting.  It is a great go to dessert for the upcoming winter months.