I Saw it on Pinterest: Pumpkin Crumb Cake

Pumpkin Crumb Cake

I actually started this post last week, and never quite got around to finishing it. Since then I broke my beloved green cake stand, pictured above, while I was washing it, which makes me very sad because my grandma gave it to me. And I made this cake for the second time in a week...because it's that good.

 

I love Pinterest, and I love all things pumpkin. I've been trying to keep cans of pumpkin in the house at all times, just in case I come across a tasty looking recipe like this one. Speaking of which, I should carry a notebook with me and take notes at all times, because I seriously can't remember anything. Like who pointed me in the direction of this autumnal divinity, which my kids and I have eaten way too much of this week. I'm pretty sure a Pinterest link was posted to Facebook, and that's how I found it. Nonetheless, however I came about finding the recipe, it is on Pinterest now. And HERE is a link to the website where the full recipe can be found.

I'm not going to type out the ingredients and directions here, so just go ahead and get all that pertinent info from the link above. 

The recipe might look a little complicated, but it's truly not bad. Then again, I'm of the mindset that a little extra time and effort is well worth it when it comes to baking from scratch. But this recipe is just a matter of following the directions - no special skills required. Since the recipe calls for only half a cup of pumpkin, one small can of pumpkin is enough to make about two and a half pumpkin crumb cakes. I used my spring form pan, just cause I think it looks prettier, but I'm sure it would taste just as good coming out of a square baking dish.

The end result is a somewhat rich, not overly sweet, coffee cake with a hint of pumpkin flavor. The crumb topping is crunchy and wonderful, and not a crumb of it has gone wasted from a single plate. There is just something about this pumpkin crumb cake that makes it difficult to resist every time I find an excuse to pass through the kitchen.

I've also tried modifying a couple recipes using canned pumpkin. After seeing a post from Life After I "Dew" (whether it was on Facebook or the blog itself, I couldn't tell you), I decided to give two-ingredient pumpkin muffins a try. Maybe you've seen the recipe floating around the internet. Just combine a box of cake mix (I used spice cake) and a small can of pumpkin, and bake as usual. Really - no need to add anything else. My kids really liked these muffins, I'd have to say they were a big hit. 

I was telling a friend of mine about the pumpkin muffins, and she said the same can be done with a box of brownie mix and a small can of pumpkin. Having nothing to lose, I decided to give the brownies a try too. They tasted good right out of the oven, but the more they cooled the less I liked the pumpkin brownies. The kids liked them and ate quite a few, but they didn't devour them as they did the pumpkin muffins. My friend told me her kids preferred the brownies over the muffins, but my kids were the opposite. So who knows? Go ahead and try both "recipes"* and let me know whether you and yours prefer the muffins or the brownies. Don't forget about the pumpkin crumb cake either! Or if you have another pumpkin recipe that you love, please share in the comments.

*In quotes because it's only two ingredients, does that really constitute a recipe?

Review of Duncan Hines Frosting Creations

I love homemade frosting. Unless I'm in a serious time crunch, I try to avoid canned store-bought frosting. Honestly it doesn't take that much time and effort to make a decent frosting from scratch, and I can guarantee it'll taste better than anything sold in the baking supply aisle.

Nonetheless, I recently had a coupon for the new Duncan Hines Frosting Creations. It's a plain white frosting, and you buy a flavor packet (sold separately) to add to it. In addition to my coupon, it was on sale, so I decided I'd give it a try. I also have to admit I was a little intrigued when I saw the cotton candy flavor.

Even though we already had a birthday cake for Mathilda over the weekend, I couldn't let her real birthday go by without singing "Happy Birthday" and letting her blow out three candles. I returned once again to my trusty Betty Crocker cookbook, this time choosing the chocolate cake recipe.

Here is the recipe from the Betty Crocker cookbook, which I followed to the letter with one small exception. After beating all of the ingredients together, I stirred in half a bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips. It was a good addition to the recipe, now duly noted in my cookbook.

Chocolate Cake
2 1/4 cups all-purpose or 2 1/2 cups cake flour
1 2/3 cups sugar
3/4 cup butter, softened
2/3 cup baking cocoa
1 1/4 cups water
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
2 large eggs

1. Heat oven to 350 F. Grease (or spray with no stick spray) bottom and sides of one 13x9-inch pan, two 9-inch round pans, or three 8-inch round pans with shortening; lightly flour.
2. In large bowl, beat all ingredients with electric mixer on low speed 30 seconds, scraping bowl constantly. Beat on high speed 3 minutes, scraping bowl occasionally. Pour into pan(s).
3. Bake 13x9-inch pan 40-45 minutes, round pans 30-35 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool rectangle in pan on wire rack. Cool rounds 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire rack. Cool completely before frosting, about one hour.

 After baking the cake, I followed the directions for mixing the frosting.

I made a hole in the middle, going all the way down to the bottom, with a dinner knife.

I poured the entire contents of the flavor packet into the hole.

I stirred with my dinner knife.

Eventually it looked like this.

My suggestion is that when you think you have the flavor packet completely mixed into the frosting, keep stirring for another minute or so. When I frosted the cake, I realized that I hadn't stirred as well as I thought I had.

Here's the frosted cake

For a finishing touch, I added chocolate shavings. I took a vegetable peeler to a Hershey's bar to make the pieces curl a bit. It works better if the chocolate is cold, and I found it easier to shave the thin edges of the chocolate instead of trying to shave over the flat surface of the chocolate bar.

The best I can say about Duncan Hines Frosting Creations is that I love the color and the kids liked the taste. I'll also throw in that it was easy to mix and easy to spread. As far as the color, the pictures don't do it justice. I think the combination of the blue frosting and the brown chocolate shavings looks great. Unfortunately, I didn't think it tasted much like cotton candy at all. The kids thought it did, but I'm fairly certain they wouldn't have been able to blindly tell me it was cotton candy flavored frosting without already knowing that's what it was. Also, I polled them and asked if they liked this frosting better or the homemade coconut cream cheese frosting I made the other day, and they all said the homemade frosting was better. There are several other flavors available, but I'd only be tempted to try them if I once again had a great coupon combined with a sale.

Have you tried this frosting? What did you think?

I was not compensated for this post, nor was I provided with a free product. I bought Duncan Hines Frosting Creations. All opinions are my own.

Baking With Pam

As a member of Smiley360, I was given the opportunity to review PAM cooking spray. If you want to try PAM, click this link for a coupon - but hurry, you have to print it by November 15 and use it by November 30.

Last week I got my reviewer's package in the mail. This is what was in it:

• Pyrex baking dish
• Spatula
• Coupon for a FREE can of Hunt's tomatoes
• Coupon for a FREE can of PAM

Are you beginning to understand why I love delivery people so much? Getting awesome freebies like this is way fun! I mentioned Smiley360 a couple weeks ago in a post about how to get rad free stuff. You don't have to be a blogger to sign up, in case you're interested.


Anyway, onto my review. I went to Kroger to redeem my coupon, and I chose PAM no-stick baking spray, made with real flour. We use quite a bit of cooking spray, and generally I buy the store brand because it's cheapest and I didn't think there was much difference.


We were having some company for dinner on  Halloween, so I decided I'd make a German apple cake for dessert. This is a recipe from Chris's mom, and I've been making it for years. I have no idea where she got it, but it's sort of one of her signature desserts. It's simple and delicious.

German Apple Cake

2/3 cup oil

1.5 cups sugar

2 eggs

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 cups flour

4 cups peeled and sliced apples (4-5 apples)

~~~~~~~~~

Heat oven to 350

Grease & flour 9x13 pan

Mix everything up in 1 bowl and spoon it into the baking dish

Bake 45 minutes

Note that the finished product is pretty lumpy. This is a great fall recipe, or good for anytime you have extra apples to use up. There are no fancy or complicated ingredients, just stuff you probably already have on hand.

Instead of greasing and flouring, I used my new can of PAM. Flouring is kind of a messy pain, so it's nice to be able to just spray and kill two birds with one stone. The PAM comes out with a lot of force so make sure you hold the can a good 6 inches from your surface that's being sprayed. Also, I'm used to pushing no-stick spray nozzles forward, but for this one you have to push straight down on it. It took me a minute for this to register, but then I'll be the first to admit that I have perpetual Mom Brain.

The verdict is that I'm totally sold. Wow. I cut up the cake and each piece came out easily, without half of it sticking to the pan. Usually I'm left with a mess and I have to soak the pan and tediously scrape out the dregs. I can't wait to try PAM baking spray on my baking sheets when I'm making cookies. I have to admit, I think I may become a name brand convert for this item. 

In exchange for providing a review, I was gifted the Pyrex pan, the spatula, the coupon for a FREE can of tomatoes, and the coupon for the FREE PAM. I was not compensated in any other way, and all other opinions and views expressed here are 100% my own. 

They Say It's Your Birthday

Actually Chris's birthday. And it was yesterday. He wanted to stay home all day and just hang around watching movies and stuff. So my mom and his parents came over for pizza and I made cake.

                                                         It looked pretty good in the pan.

While I am unfortunately not much of a cook, I do enjoy baking. Mainly because I love sweets almost to the exclusion of all other foods. So I had a box of chocolate cake mix, but I wanted to do something different with it, so I found this recipe for meringue-swirled chocolate cake on the Betty Crocker website. Well it was my first time making meringue, so let's just say it didn't look so pretty once I took it out of the springform pan. Nor was it quite as intact.

 

                                               This is what an overcooked meringue-swirled chocolate cake looks like.


I followed the directions exactly, but I guess I should have shaved about 10-15 minutes off the baking time. But it tasted good, kind of like a sweet, crunchy cookie coating. I think I'll try this one again another time, and maybe not forget about it until the oven buzzer goes off so that I actually check on it, to, you know, make sure it's not getting ruined.    

The kids put together a little routine for Chris, to the Beatles "Birthday Song". Can I just say I love that my 9-year old daughter has Beatles music on her iPod? We'll just ignore for a moment the rest of the crap she has on there.

 
My own birthday will be here in a couple weeks, and my birthday is always a depressing day for me. This year I resolve to enjoy my birthday. In fact I think I'm going to add that to my Life List - Enjoy My Birthday Every Year. I will prepare myself to have a great day. Okay I have some time to get myself hyped up, I'll do my best.