Bourbon-glazed sweet potato pound cake recipe

Ingredients

• 4 cups coarsely chopped, richly toasted pecans (10 to 12 minutes at 350°F)
• 4 cups sifted all-purpose flour (not a soft Southern flour)
• 1½ teaspoons freshly grated nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1⁄4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1⁄4 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups (4 sticks) cold unsalted butter
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 6 extra-large eggs
• 1 cup firmly packed, puréed, unseasoned baked sweet potato, at room temperature
• 1⁄2 cup milk
• 2 tablespoons bourbon
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon finely grated orange zest

• 3⁄4 cup unsifted confectioner’s (10 X) sugar
• 1½ tablespoons each bourbon and cold water
• 1½ teaspoons vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 300°F. Coat 10-inch tube pan with nonstick oiland- flour baking spray and set aside.
2. Dredge pecans in 1⁄2 cup flour in large bowl; set aside. Whisk remaining flour, nutmeg, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in second large bowl and set aside.
3. Cream butter at low electric mixer speed 3 minutes, scraping bowl at halftime, then with mixer at highest speed and without pausing to scrape mixing bowl, cream butter 3 minutes longer until light. Scrape bowl well, then beating at low speed, add granulated sugar gradually. Raise speed to high and beat 5 minutes until fluffy and almost white, pausing often to scrape bowl.
4. At low mixer speed, add eggs one by one, beating well after each addition. Combine sweet potato, milk, bourbon, vanilla, and orange zest in a spouted 1-quart measure, then with mixer at low speed, add dry ingredients alternately with sweet potato mixture, beginning and ending with dry and beating only enough to partially incorporate no more or you’ll toughen the cake. Four additions of the dry and three of sweet potato mixture are about right.
5. By hand, fold in pecans and dredging flour, scooping down to bottom of bowl to make sure they’re distributed evenly. This is a stiff batter; handle it with a light touch.
6. Scoop batter into pan, smooth top, and rap sharply once or twice on counter to release large air bubbles.
7. Slide cake onto middle oven shelf and bake 1½ hours until it begins to pull from sides of pan and cake tester inserted midway between central tube and edge of pan comes out clean.
8. Cool cake in upright pan on wire rack 20 minutes. Carefully loosen around edge and central tube with small, thin-blade spatula and invert cake on rack. Cool cake to room temperature.
9. Transfer cake (rack and all) to wax-paper-covered counter. Quickly combine all Bourbon Glaze ingredients, then drizzle glaze decoratively over cake, letting it run down sides. Note: Scoop up any glaze that lands on wax paper and continue spooning over cake. Allow cake to stand at least an hour before cutting.
10. To serve, cut cake into wedges and top each portion, if you like, with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or billow of whipped cream.