Pumpkin Cake with Caramel Icing

Cake:

2 cups sugar
3 eggs, well beaten
1 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon cloves
2 cups self-rising flour
1 cup pumpkin
1 cup chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 350º F. Mix all ingredients except pecans, until well blended. Stir in pecans. Pour into well greased and floured bundt pan. Bake for 1 hour. Cool 10-15 minutes, then take out of pan and cool completely.

Caramel Icing:

½ cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
¼ cup milk
3-3¼ cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted

Melt butter in saucepan. Add brown sugar and bring to a boil. Stir 1 minute or until slightly thick. Cool slightly. Add milk and beat smooth. Beat in confectioners’ sugar till spreading consistency. Frost cake (quickly)!

The basis for this recipe came from a Plum Cake recipe from a friend and co-worker at the Peach County Dept of Family and Children Services, Laura Kelly Gibbs. In that recipe, 2 small jars of strained baby food plums were used, not 1 c. pumpkin. However, the last time I went to make this cake I could not find any baby food plums! Thus I decided pumpkin should work just as well. On the Plum Cake, instead of Caramel Icing a lemon icing was used. (2 c. powdered sugar, 1 stick margarine, and juice of 1 lemon. Heat together and pour over warm cake after removing it from pan.) I did enter this in the Kentucky State Fair in 2009, but no ribbon for it. However, Elizabeth told me in August that she wanted this at Thanksgiving. So, what did those judges know anyway?