Kentucky Bourbon Cake
- 4 cups sifted all-purpose flour
- 3 cups lightly toasted pecans, coarsely chopped (10 to 12 minutes in a 350° F. oven)
- 3 cups seedless raisins
- 1½ teaspoons freshly grated nutmeg
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 pound (4 sticks) butter (no substitute)
- 1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 cups sugar
- 6 extra-large eggs, separated
- ¾ cup bourbon
Instructions:
Use a 10-inch tube pan to bake this cake, a light-colored one to discourage over-browning; and butter and flour it well.
- Preheat the oven to 250° F. Generously butter a 10-inch tube pan, dust with flour, then tap out any excess flour and discard; set the pan aside.
- Place ½ cup of the sifted flour in a large bowl, add the pecans and raisins, and toss well; set aside. Whisk the remaining 3½ cups flour, the nutmeg, baking soda, and salt together in a second large bowl and set aside also.
- Cream the butter and vanilla in a large electric mixer bowl at low speed for 3 minutes, scraping the bowl often, then raise the mixer speed to medium and cream 2 to 3 minutes longer or until light and fluffy. Scrape the bowl well, set the mixer at moderately low speed, and add the sugar gradually. Raise the mixer speed to high and beat hard for 3 to 5 minutes or until fluffy and almost white, pausing several times to scrape the bowl.
- With the mixer at low speed, add the egg yolks one by one, beating well and scraping the bowl after each addition. With the mixer still at low speed, add the sifted dry ingredients alternately with the bourbon, beginning and ending with the dry—four additions of the dry and three of bourbon are about right.
- Using clean beaters, whip the egg whites in a separate clean bowl until soft and billowing—the stage just before soft peaks. Fold about a fourth of the beaten whites into the batter to lighten it (it’s very thick), then fold in the balance—gently—until no streaks of white or yellow remain. By hand, fold in the dredged pecans and raisins and all dredging flour.
- Scoop the batter into the pan, smooth the top, and rap once or twice on the counter sharply to release large air bubbles.
- Slide the cake onto the middle oven shelf and bake for 2½ to 2¾ hours or until it begins to pull from the sides of the pan, feels springy to the touch, and a cake tester inserted midway between the central tube and the edge of the pan comes out clean.
- Cool the cake in the upright pan on a wire rack for 20 minutes. Carefully loosen around the edge and central tube with a small, thin blade spatula and invert on a wire rack.
- Cool the cake to room temperature, then, before cutting, invert on a round plate so the cake is right side up. This cake needs no frosting.