The Great Pumpkin Cake

 

I know Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday are over and EVERYONE  is thinking Christmas, but it is still technically Fall till December 21st so I am posting about my Thanksgiving Pumpkin cake that you can make any time of year.

 

A dear friend showed me a picture of this cake from a gourmet magazine and I thought I could replicate it without all the fancy ingredients and directions.....I "thought"!

 

It came out pretty good though so I am sharing it with you. I brought it to that friends house for Thanksgiving and there were oohs and aahs all around!

 

The recipes for the cake, filling and frosting follow the how-to directions.

 

The idea is to put two bundt cakes together on top of each other to form a pumpkin shape, with a filling in the middle. If you have one of those bundt pans (like from Pampered Chef) that has the grooves in it, that's perfect! Only thing I found out was that using a buttercream frosting kinda covered up the grooves....it was too thick! Next time, if there is one, I would use an orange tinted glaze instead.

 

 

I decided that two whole cake recipes would be too thick of a cake and one cake would not be thick enough (you can use one cake but you would have to bake one half at a time to get the two rounded, grooved halves to make a pumpkin shape).

 

I made batter for two cakes, separately, and filled the pan a little more than half each and baked them one at at time. I put the leftover batter from each cake in an 8" cake pan and had an extra cake for another time.

 

I trimmed the flat side of one cake evenly so that the top would fit on. I spread the pumpkin cream cheese filling on the bottom half and then put the top half on, making sure I lined up the groove marks from top to bottom as good as I could!

 

 

 

 

 

I smoothed the filling all the way around to make an even frosting field.
Next came making the frosting the orange of a pumpkin! I used my daughters professional cake decorating colors. I was adding and experimenting with yellow, red and bronze to get just the right color....until she told me that too much colorant can make the frosting greasy and unspreadable. I stopped at a light orange hue.

I had saved a pumpkin stem from a real pumpkin but wasn't sure how I was going to put it on with the hole in the middle of the cake. Remember the extra batter made into an extra cake? I took a piece of that and stuffed the hole with it, frosted over it and stuck the stem on. Then I took the metal spatula and formed grooves into the frosting (actually that is the technique the gourmet cake recipe used).

TA DAAAA....

 

Jimbo's Chocolate Cake

 

1 box Duncan Hines chocolate fudge cake mix

4 large eggs

1 box instant (3.5 oz.) chocolate pudding mix

1/2 cup oil

3/4 cup water

1 cup sour cream

1 cup chocolate chips

 

Mix all ingredients except the chocolate chips by hand till moistened, then mix in an electric mixer

3 minutes. Pour into greased bundt pan. Sprinkle 1 cup chocolate chips over the batter and press in.

Bake at 350 for 50-55 minutes.

 

Pumpkin Cream Filling

 

1 - 8 oz. package cream cheese, softened

1/3 cup canned pumpkin

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

 

In a bowl whisk together ingredients till thickened. Spread on bottom layer of cake.

 

Buttercream Frosting

 

3 cups confectioners sugar

1/3 cup (5 1/3 tablespoons) butter, softened

 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

1-2 tablespoons milk

 

Cream butter and sugar in mixer. Add vanilla. Add milk as needed for consistency.

 

If you decide to try this at home, please let me know your technique!

 

It really tastes fantastic and isn't that what really matters?

 

Yes!

 

 

AnnMarie :)



FRESH Pumpkin Pie Recipe....and a few bonuses!

One of my favorite things to do in Autumn is to go to all the local farm markets in my area to see what they've got for Fall. I live in apple country so there is always an abundance of fresh, just picked from the orchard apples to munch on. I love the displays of mums and crates of pumpkins and gourds.

There is always a crate of pie pumpkins and seeing them always pricks at my bakers' heart to try and make a pie out of one......kinda going back to the country basics and using what is on the land as opposed to what is in the can.

 

The pie pumpkins are usually small and so perfect like this one! So, since I was at the farm market buying my sixth mum to plant (to fulfill something else I have been wanting to do which is to have a row of all different mums in my garden)  I went for it. I brought it home and went online for directions and a recipe. Following is my journey of a new baking adventure!

 

Here is the full recipe so that you know ahead what you need to start:

 

Fresh Pumpkin Pie (courtesy of allrecipes.com)

 

1 medium pie pumpkin

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1 recipe pastry for 9 inch single crust pie

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon cloves

1 teaspoon salt

4 eggs, slightly beaten

1 cup honey, warmed slightly

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

 

 

 

The first thing you have to do is cut into this perfect little pumpkin and bake it just like any other squash. Cut it in half and remove the seeds with a spoon. See that mushy pile of pulp and seeds? Do not throw it away! We will use them later.

 

Lightly oil the cut surface and place cut side down on a cookie sheet. Bake at 325 degrees F until the flesh is tender when poked (up to an hour). Cool until warm. It comes out looking like this....

 

 

Scrape the pumpkin flesh from the peel and puree it in a food processor or mash it by hand. You will need 2 cups for the pie. 

 

To the pumpkin puree add the spices and salt. Beat in the eggs, honey, milk and cream. Pour the filling into an un-baked pie shell.

 

Bake at 400 degrees F for 50 - 55 minutes (it took mine 75 minutes!) or until knife inserted comes out clean.

 

 

 

 

The color and texture are totally different from a pie made from canned pumpkin. With a mound of whipped cream on top, my son and husband thought it was better tasting!

 

Bonus #1:

Now comes the fun part! Get that mushy pile of pumpkin pulp and seeds and start picking the seeds out and then rinse them till all the pulp is off.

 

 

 

Lightly spray a cookie sheet with cooking spray and spread the seeds out. Sprinkle salt over all to your taste.

 

 

Roast in a 400 degree F oven for 10 minutes or until lightly browned and you have a really good, crunchy snack!

 

 

Bonus #2:

 

I originally thought I would make two pumpkin pies but it turned out I didn't have enough ingredients. So....since I had another pie crust and apples in the fridge, I decided to make the only apple pie recipe I will ever use. The ingredients are all things you normally have on hand and that is one of the reasons I love it.

 

It is called Genesee Valley Apple Crumb Pie and is from the Junior League of Rochester's Applehood and Motherpie cookbook. It is SO good!

 





 

 

Happy baking!

 

........... and eating!

 

AnnMarie :)



 

Pumpkin Cookies and Pumpkin Bread Recipes - THE BEST

I love that everywhere I drive this time of year I see scenes like this on the roadside. I am blessed in that I can drive back country roads to alot of places I go and so that helps add to the Fall feeling in the air......

Every year I HAVE to make these pumpkin cookies. My daughters insist on them, maybe because I have been making them since they were little. You could say that they are vintage! Actually it is a Libby's canned pumpkin recipe I found in a Woman's Day magazine in October 1983. So it IS a vintage recipe! They are fabulous, vintage or not, and now when I make them every year my granddaughter Cassidy helps me decorate them........they are especially good with peanut butter as frosting....YUM!



Pumpkin Cookies

4 cups unsifted flour

2 cups oats

2 tsp. baking soda

2 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. salt

1 ½ cups butter or margarine, softened

2 cups firmly packed brown sugar

1 cup sugar

1 egg

1 tsp. vanilla

16 oz. can pumpkin

1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350. Combine flour, oats, soda, cinnamon and salt; set aside. Cream butter; gradually add sugars, beating until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla; mix well. Alternate additions of dry ingredients and pumpkin, mixing well after each addition. Stir in chocolate chips. Form round shapes on greased cookie pan and add more dough for stem. Bake for 20-25 minutes.

Frost with icing or peanut  butter. Decorate with chocolate chips, candy corn, raisins or nuts.

Makes alot!

Another fabulous recipe that I have been making since my girls were little, is this pumpkin bread. It is THE best pumpkin bread I've had.......it is the only recipe I've used for almost 30 years and usually anyone who tastes it, agrees and wants the recipe. My daughter Jena makes it every year to take to her grandmothers house on Thanksgiving (even though my mother-in-law has the recipe too!). It is always a treat because we only make it once a year.

Mom’s Fabulous Pumpkin Bread

3 cups sifted flour

2 cups sugar

½ tsp. salt

½ tsp. cinnamon

2 tsp. baking soda

2 tsp. baking powder

¾ cup vegetable or canola oil

2 cups canned pumpkin

1 cup chocolate chips

In a large mixing bowl mix together dry ingredients. Add remaining ingredients and mix well. Bake at 350 for 1 hour in a bundt pan or 55 minutes in 2 loaf pans.

Enjoy these recipes. Can you leave me a comment to let me know how you like them, pretty please?