Pumpkin Spice is Twice as Nice.
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.
106 Comments on “Pumpkin Spice is Twice as Nice.”
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Oh my gosh. This is taking it to a new level, even for YOU! And I mean that as the absolute highest compliment :-)
WOW! Great job with this challenge- this is gorgeous. How fabulous would these slices look on a thanksgiving table? You rock. Glad you had such a nice birthday
This is the best looking cake I’ve seen in a long time!!!!
Ummmm…. this post has me wondering if I have in fact not yet woken up this morning and am still dreaming.
I want.
Great job!!! Oh, and HAPPY BELATED B-DAY :)
Oh gosh…we have no words. Ok wait, we have one word…YUMMY!
these look gorgeous! if you need any help enjoying those… ;)
Is it too early to be craving cake? No? Good, I was hoping not! I love the flavor combination of both cakes – very creative!!
Jesus! I have no words, this is just so…perfect.
When should I come over? ;-)
This is a cake explosion!! Looks like you had a blast creating new flavor combos and stacking those layers. What in the world did you do with all that CAKE?? awesome girl :)
Whoa!! It looks like you completely outdid yourself and then some! So cool to see the outcome of all of that hard work:) Very beautiful.
I think you have officially made yourself into a cake woman. Just saying.
You are a genius.
Cheesecake in the middle is an AWESOME idea!
These are AMAZING! Holy cow… I am in awwww
Absolutely beautiful!
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Good job! I really really want a piece of cake #2. Sounds like all kinds of deliciousness!
That was my favorite too!
WOOWWW… may just have to set one of these photos as my desktop background!! :)
wow – those cakes look AMAZING! I can’t believe all of the work that must have gone into that! Acually, i can. Last week was my husband’s birthday and I tried to make a cake from scratch for the first time. It ended up only being three layers as one of them fell apart out of the pan (oops) and it was a runny mess, but he said it tasted good. Oh – and it took me three hours to do!
Oh yum! Hooray for cake :)
Oh my god. You have just surpassed “awesome” into “godly”.
Oh my goodness. Amazingly beautiful photos that I just want to stare at for hours. I really think I could! I’d be sitting there hoping that a slice would appear in front of me!
First of all, happy belated bday! Secondly, for not baking cake often you do a pretty darn good job of it! These look divine :)
All this deliciousness is makin me weak in the knees!
Holy cow, Jess! Those cakes look insanely delicious!!!
Oh my! I feel my blood sugar rising just looking at this. You are such a cake artist – everything looks amazing!
Heavens to Betsy! There is some serious droolage going on over here. As I recall, you live in the western part of this great state, so when work brings me out your way I’m totally sneaking into your kitchen in my stretchiest pants to eat to my heart’s content…
Wow! You outdid yourself with these! I’m going to be dreaming of cake all day long. :)
WHOA! Only you could pull off something like this! And congrats on being compensated for your work–that is totally exciting!
Oh. My. Gosh.
I just… I want to say… wow.
OH MY!! seriously, out did yourself here!! amazingly beautiful, I would hire you to make my wedding cake :) (I guess I should get engaged first! hehe)
You out did yourself with these creations!!! Two beautiful cakes! Oh how I wish we were neighbors. Happy Happy birthday.
unbe-freakin-lievable. can you send that loaded dish to my house somehow…?
i don’t even know what to say………… i really wish i didn’t have to work today so that i could bake these cakes!
These look amazing! Cake is always my go-to!
Wow, that is a lot of cake!!
This looks so amazing!!! I have never made a layer cake before — you make it look so easy!
Haha, and I just noticed you used my pumpkin cheesecake, yay! I’m glad you liked it! :-)
I came over from “Mags” blog to check you out after drooling over her recipe via you. Now I’m totally weak with longing for one of those cakes. I will be back because I am a “glutton” for punishment.
I’m also sending you a slightly belated birthday greeting. I am, however, a proponent of celebrating one’s birthday for an entire month so let the partying continue!
Best,
Bonnie
This looks amazing! But, a deconstructed version would be where the elements of a pumpkin pie are eaten separately and the flavors combine to give the same effect as eating a bit of pie, no? So, I’m not sure this cake would truly qualify as being deconstructed.
I’m not sure, but it was cleared with Nestle before I made it, so I guess it qualified!
Oh my goodness I am drooling over here. Both of those cakes look amazing!
Holy moly…..gorgeous cakes! What do you mean you can’t frost a cake? Those are simply amazing looking!!
Whoa! Holy cake! You are a genius.
You win. If you don’t the prize/pride/whatever then something is wrong with this world. I’m also not a huge cake fan (icing fan, but not cake fan) and I WANT a slice. Two, actually. Of each. Thanks. :D
oh my word!!! not only can i open your blog but 2 cakes to boot!!! looks and sounds amazing!!!
oh–and happy bday!!!!
Yum, yum, YUM!!! I love anything in layers…except onions…I wouldn’t want an onion cake.
LOL! Yep… that sounds pretty gross.
Gorgeous!!! You have totally outdone yourself. These cakes look incredible!! :)
Happy Late Birthday!! I couldn’t get your site to load yesterday, but today it worked perfectly!!
Typically cake doesn’t do anything for me….but then you threw peanut butter in the mix and now I’m drooling over your pictures. Thanks for the recipes!! :) Cake for dinner it is!