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Pumpkin walnut cake

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This is a simple yet very delicate cake, with an incredibly moist and tender crumb, and a rich, creamy, slightly tangy filling.

Contents

Ingredients

Cake

Filling

Frosting

Instructions

Cake

  1. Preheat oven to 375 °F.
  2. Grease three 8″ round cake pans; line bottoms with parchment paper, and dust sides with flour.
  3. In a small bowl, combine 11⁄2 c all-purpose flour, 1 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp baking soda, and 1⁄2 tsp salt.
  4. In a large saucepan, bring ~1⁄2″ of water to a simmer.
  5. Place 6 extra-large eggs and 2 c sugar in a large metal mixing bowl (or work bowl of a stand mixer). Set bowl over simmering water. Whisk egg & sugar mixture as it heats, using an instant-read thermometer to check temperature, until mixture comes to 130 °F. Remove from heat.
  6. Using hand or stand mixer with whisk attachment, beat egg/sugar mixture until it is thick and pale in color.
  7. Add 1 tsp vanilla extract and 12⁄3 c pumpkin or butternut squash puree' to egg/sugar mixture and mix until incorporated.
  8. Sift dry ingredients into batter, and fold (by hand, or using mixer with paddle attachment) until incorporated.
  9. Spread batter evenly into prepared cake pans.
  10. Bake for 30 minutes, or until tops of cake rounds are a deep golden color, and spring back when touched.
  11. Remove cake pans to wire cooling rack. Cool cake rounds in pans for 10 minutes, then remove from pans and let cool on racks until fully cooled down.

Filling

While cake rounds are cooling, make filling:

  1. Preheat oven to 400 °F.
  2. Spread 21⁄2 c shelled walnut halves on a roasting pan.
  3. Toast walnuts in oven for 10 minutes.
  4. Remove pan from oven and let toasted nuts cool to room temperature.
  5. Combine 925 g smetana, 175 g sugar, and 2 tsp vanilla extract in a medium mixing bowl. Mix with hand or stand mixer with whisk attachment, or by hand with large whisk, until sugar has dissolved.
  6. Once toasted walnuts are cooled down, crush them into small pieces, using a food processor (with blade attachment), or by placing nuts in a ziploc bag and crushing with a rolling pin.

Assembly

Once cake rounds are cooled down, and filling and crushed toasted nuts are prepared, proceed to assembly:

  1. Slice each of the three cake rounds in half, to make six layers.
  2. Place first layer into a cake ring, crumb side up.
  3. Spread about 200 g of the filling on the cake layer.
  4. Sprinkle about one-fifth of the crushed walnuts on top of the filling.
  5. Repeat steps 2–4 four more times: place a cake layer, spread ~200 g filling, sprinke with ~1/5th of crushed nuts, repeat.
  6. Place last (sixth) cake layer, crumb side down.
  7. Spread remaining ~100 g filling atop final cake layer (this will be a thin “crumb coat”, to seal the top surface of the cake against drying).
  8. Chill cake in refrigerator overnight.

Frosting

  1. Remove chilled cake from fridge, and carefully remove cake ring.
  2. Whip 1 c heavy cream with 1 tbsp sugar and 1⁄2 tsp vanilla extract to make whipped cream. (Make sure to whip quite thoroughly, so that the frosting is very thick, not runny. A food processor with the blade attachment is good for this.)
  3. Frost sides and top of cake with whipped cream.
  4. Optionally, decorate cake with additional crushed walnuts, or sprinkles, or shaved dark chocolate, or drizzled caramel sauce, etc.