Pumpkin Spice is Twice as Nice.

November 8, 2010

Good morning, friends. Thank you so much for all of the wonderful birthday wishes yesterday!
This post is my creation for the November culinary events at Kitchen Play.

Kitchen Play is devoted to connecting food bloggers and PR professionals through sponsored events such as the Progressive Party, the SideCar Series, the Pampered Pantry and more. This month is sponsored by Nestlé Kitchens, so you can imagine my excitement when I found out that my top secret product was… Libby’s 100% Pure Pumpkin!

Be still my heart. Does it get any better than this? My assignment was to create a deconstructed pumpkin pie. In other words, turn pumpkin pie on its head!
When I was brainstorming ideas for my deconstructed pumpkin pie, only one thing came to mind: cake.

I thought to myself, cake? I enjoy cake, but it is rarely my go-to dessert. I usually choose something much more rich and decadent. Not to mention that I cannot decorate a cake to save my life. I can barely master a crumb coat, let alone a beautiful blanket of fluffy, whipped frosting.
But I couldn’t get cake out of my head, so I decided to roll with the punches.

And the wheels continued to churn. Not just one cake. But two cakes. Dueling cakes, perhaps? There were so many flavors I wanted to throw together, but they couldn’t possibly make it all into one cake.
So two cakes it was.

I became a cake-baking machine. In one day, the following flavors rolled in and out of my oven:

crunchy cinnamon apple
pumpkin spice
chocolate fudge
peanut butter

In addition to those flavors, I added a pumpkin cheesecake to the list, which I stuffed inside the chocolate and peanut butter cake. Couldn’t hurt, right?

For the majority of the day, I was covered in batter. I had flour up my nose and in my ears. I had butter under my nails. I orally inhaled baking soda. I don’t recommend it.
I ended up with 2 tall layer cakes.

Cake #1 consisted of 2 layers each of peanut butter cake, crunchy cinnamon apple cake and spiced pumpkin cake. Each layer was sandwiched by a layer of cinnamon sugar butter cream.

Cake #2 consisted of a center layer of pumpkin spice cheesecake, enveloped by chocolate fudge cake with the outermost layers being peanut butter cake. It was concealed in a thick layer of dark chocolate fudge chip frosting.

Now to overwhelm you… there are so many recipes! Most of the recipes I used were tried and true – I didn’t have the time, nor the expenses to screw up! Where to begin? Behold the recipes for my final creation.
Peanut Butter Cake

Source: allrecipes

I made this recipe as is, though I double it for 4 cakes. I also doubled the amount of peanut butter in it.
Chocolate Fudge Cake

Source: Kevin and Amanda

There is no going wrong with this recipe – it is what I’ve used for those cupcakes I’ve been loving!
Pumpkin Cake

1 cup butter

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup canned pumpkin

1/2 cup milk

2 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat oven to 375.

Cream butter and both sugars until fluffy. Add eggs, beating one at a time. Add vanilla and pumpkin, mixing thoroughly.

Mix flour, powder, soda, pumpkin pie spice, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a bowl. Add half of dry ingredients to pumpkin mixture. Stream in milk while mixer is on low speed. Add the other half of the dry ingredients, mixing until just combined. Divide into 2 two 9-inch cake pans.

Bakes at 375 for 20-25 minutes.
Crunchy Apple Cake

Source: myrecipes

I added large chunks of apples to this cake, which gave it a delicious crunch.
Pumpkin Cheesecake

Source: Sugarcrafter

My only changes were to cut the recipe in half, and leave out the sour cream. Because of this, I added an extra 4 ounces of cream cheese.

Cinnamon Sugar Buttercream

2 cups butter, room temperature

2 pounds powdered sugar

1 tablespoon vanilla

1 tablespoon cinnamon

Cream butter and sugar together, adding vanilla and cinnamon. If mixture is too thick, add a tablespoon of milk until it reaches your desired consistency.
Chocolate Fudge Chip Frosting

Source: allrecipes

This frosting was inspired by Pillsbury’s fudge chip frosting which my family has become obsessed with. I doubled the recipe for this frosting and added mini chocolate chips. It was just as delicious!

So there you go. This non cake-baker baked 2 giant layer cakes full of pumpkin and spice. And we ate cake for days. It was fabulous. And delicious. And pants-button-busting.
This recipe was my creation for the Kitchen Play Sidecar Series, sponsored by Nestlé Kitchens . I was compensated for my work creating an original recipe with Libby’s 100% Pure Pumpkin.