Orange-Pecan-Raisin Cake

This was one of my favorite cakes when I was a child. We lived with orange trees all around us. My father planted one tree they called a "June bloom", which meant that we almost always had our own fresh homegrown oranges for anything we wanted. The cake has several simple steps, but is very easy and quickly put together. If my mother added the brandy when making the syrup, I never knew it. It has become one of my own family's favorites, as well as one that I'm often asked to make for birthdays and other family celebrations.

Ingredients:

Cake:

• 3/4 cup butter
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 1 tsp. fresh orange zest
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1 tsp. baking soda

Syrup:

• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup orange juice
• 1 oz. good brandy (I use Southern Comfort now)

Directions:

Syrup:

Mix sugar and orange juice in a small saucepan until sugar is all melted. Do not boil. Set aside to cool slightly, then add brandy (or Southern Comfort). You are going to baste the baked HOT cake with this syrup, as soon as it comes out of the oven and the rim of the pan is removed.

Cake:

Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs one at the time beating well after each addition. Add vanilla and stir in until batter is smooth. Sift flour and salt together. Add baking soda to sour cream and stir.

Add flour mixture and sour cream mixture alternately mixing after each addition. End with flour. Fold in orange zest, pecans, and raisins until thoroughly blended.

Bake in greased and floured tube pan about 45 minutes at 375 degrees F. Test for doneness.

Remove cake from oven, carefully remove outer rim from tube pan, and place cake still on the pan's bottom on a cake plate, then immediately baste hot cake with reserved orange syrup. Baste slowly so as to get all the syrup into cake.

When cake is cool, it will be easily removed from the bottom of the pan to the plate. Run a knife around the tube part of the pan, then slide the knife between the cake and the bottom of the cake pan and carefully move it onto the plate.

Source: My Mother's recipe. I believe it came from my maternal grandmother, since I ate the same cake at her home when I was a kid.

By Julia from Boca Raton, FL