Pumpkin Cake

Who doesn’t love Pumpkin Cake?  We know with certainty that Martha Stewart does.  Martha’s website has a fabulous recipe for Pumpkin Cake with Brown Butter Icing.

What is pumpkin cake?

Pumpkin Cake is made by mixing sifted flour with baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Setting it aside and combining  sugar and oil in separate large bowl, blending in vanilla and pumpkin, then beating in eggs one at a time before baking in the oven.

Where was pumpkin first used as food?

So far, the earliest cultivated pumpkin seeds have been found in the highlands of Oaxaca, Mexico (prounounced ‘owah-hawka’).

When was pumpkin bread or pumpkin first made?

Native Americans from Central America to North America made pan bread by adding mashed pumpkin, corn meal for thousands of years.

The earliest American recipe for cooking with pumpkin is dated 1672,  from John Josselyn’s book New-England Rarities Discovered.  The pumpkin side dish called for dicing the squash and cooking it in a pot over the course of a day. Butter and spices were added when finished.

The earliest dated recipe for “Pumpkin Bread” is dated 1844 and reads as follows:

“Stew and strain some pumpkin, stiffen it with Indian meal, add salt and yeast, and it makes a most excellent kind of bread.”
Miss Beecher’s Domestic Receipt Book – Catharine Esther Beecher

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