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You will need a 9" bundt-style tube pan (I used a tinned French pan, known to Maida Heatter fans as a "swirl pan"; this may seem like effete esoterica, but trust me, it makes a big difference in the outcome of your crumbs); butter and flour for the pan; 1 stick (4 oz.) unsalted butter, softened; 1 cup (7 oz.) granulated sugar; 3 large eggs; 1 cup (4 oz.) all-purpose flour; ½ tsp. baking powder, ½ teaspoon cinnamon; ½ teaspoon nutmeg; a pinch of salt; 1 jigger (2 fl. oz. or 4 tbsp.) brandy, rum or whiskey (I used a fragrant, sublime dark rum that a dear friend brought me back from Belize); 2 cups (approximately ¾ pound) golden raisins and 2 cups (a bit over ½ pound) whole pecan halves.  No, "whole pecan halves" is not a contradiction in terms.

1.      Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F (Gas Mark 4) and set a rack to the middle of the oven.  Butter and flour your pan.

2.      Beat butter and sugar together until mixture is white and fluffy.  This is what is known as "creaming" the butter and sugar, which, to hear the various editorial foodweasels tell it, is a term too intimidating for beginning cooks and bakers to learn, so we'd best not be putting it in our recipes,  "Dredging" and "folding" are suspect, too.  But I digress.

3.      Add the eggs, one at a time, and beat until incorporated.  Stop to scrape down the bowl if you need to.

4.      In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt.  Most recipes will tell you to sift them together, and while sifting is good for aerating ingredients, I find that I have better luck blending them evenly with a whisk.  A fork works well, too; just be sure to blend them for at least 30 seconds, so they're well-mixed.

5.      Add the dry ingredients to the liquid in three increments; again, scrape the bowl sides as you need to. Add the brandy (or rum or whisky) and stir to combine.

6.      By hand, stir in the pecans and the raisins.  It will look as if you have far too many raisins and nuts, and not enough batter in which to suspend them, but I promise, if you are gentle, thorough and patient, you will have everything blended together evenly.

7.      Pour the batter into the tube pan, tilt gently from side to side to be sure that you have an even distribution of batter on all sides of the pan, and send it to the oven.

8.      Bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes.  Check it after an hour, though; some ovens run hotter than others, and you don't want to burn your cake, which will make the kitchen smell like Heaven made manifest.  If it looks done and is firm to the touch after an hour, but you still hear a faint "crackling" noise in the batter, send it back to the oven for five more minutes.  If the cake is quiet, it's done.

9.      Let the cake sit for ten minutes, then turn it out onto a cooling rack.

10.     When you notice that it's not moving, run a knife around the edges of the cake, as well as the tube, and try again.

11.     When it still doesn't move, remove the cooling rack and try inverting the cake again, this time giving the tube a gentle rap upon the table.

12.     Stare mutely as only 1/3 of the cake falls from the pan.  Check the pan again.  Note that 2/3 of the cake is still in there.

13.     Repeat steps 10 and 11 until the urge to sob uncontrollably passes.

14.     Dig remainder of cake out of pan with spoon.  Note how some of the cake releases in large, cakelike pieces, while the rest of it falls into moist, rum-scented crumbs.

15.     Moosh the crumbs together into a cairn and take your pan to the sink.  Reflect on the fact that this little French tinware pan is not like your Nordicware, nor even like its larger sibling French tinware pan, with the larger, easy-to-grease-and-flour swirls.  This is a pan that requires lavish buttering and coating with breadcrumbs, not flour.  You knew this, you knew from the beginning that you needed breadcrumbs, but no, you decided to take a shortcut.  For shame, Doc.

16.     Grab yourself a plate, hack off a bit of the mooshed cake and taste it.  Know that even though it's not what you were looking for, you are still in the presence of a luscious, fragrant cake.  Have I mentioned what good rum will do to pecans and raisins and butter cake?  Would you like me to mention it again?

17.     Try it again, this time with a properly greased pan (or with a less finicky one).  When the cake drops beautifully and wholly from the pan, you will have made Rita (Mrs. Thomas Hart) Benton's Pecan Cake, as found in How America Eats by Clementine Paddleford.  It will be a vision when you cut a slice of it, all those pecans and raisins bumping up happily against each other, and if you store the cake in an airtight tin and regularly dose it up with more rum, it will last you for a good long while.