PUMPKIN WEEK: Pumpkin Spice Cake with Maple Frosting

*please excuse the pictures in this post.  I decided to make this cake at night after a few glasses of wine.  

Hello hello,

It’s time for another rendition of theme weeks and this week is brought to you by pumpkin!  (insert pumpkin foofaraw here)  Truth be told, it’s still 80 degrees in SoCal right now, so my mind is not registering “Pumpkin Week” quite yet.  However, in the spirit of team camaradarie, I decided to join the party with a pumpkin spice cake.

I know you’re probably thinking, “Pumpkin spice cake?  Yawn.”  But let me tell you, this cake is a delicate balance of pumpkin, spices, and sweetness that you will want to add to your repertoire of “classic” recipes.

Now, in researching pumpkin spice cake, I found there were not many variations in recipes.  Some called for buttermilk or sour cream to moisten things up, but I felt like the pumpkin would create enough moisture on its own.  Other recipes went crazy on spices, but I wanted to let the pumpkin shine through.

This cake turned out perfect!  The cake was full of flavor and the sweetness of the maple frosting balanced with the spiciness of the cake.  I am definitely making this again for Thanksgiving.

For the cake, you will need:

• 1.5 sticks softened butter
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1 (15 oz.) can pumpkin
• 2 cups flour
• 2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 2.5 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp. ginger
• 1/8 tsp. nutmeg
• 1/8 tsp. allspice
• 1/8 tsp. cloves

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl and set aside (flour, baking soda, salt, spices).

The finest of supermarket spices.

Using a mixer, beat together butter and sugars until combined.  Add eggs one at a time and vanilla.  Beat until creamy.

Then add the canned pumpkin until just combined.

Slowly add the dry ingredients to the pumpkin mixture until the dry ingredients are fully incorporated.

Pour batter into greased bundt pan (or use my pal, Comfortably Domestic’s handy baking pan conversion chart).  Bake for approximately 25-30 minutes (check with a toothpick).

For the frosting, you will need:

• 1/2 stick butter
• 1 (8 oz.) block cream cheese
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 4 Tbsp. maple syrup (I used the real maple syrup.  You might want to taste as you go if you are using the imitation stuff because it’s a little stronger.)
• 3-4 cups powdered sugar

Wait until the cake has cooled completely.

Beat butter, cream cheese, vanilla, and syrup together until creamy.

Add powdered sugar one cup at a time until it is as sweet as you would like.  I think I stopped at 3.5 cups, but I was eye-balling it.  I should stop doing that when I’m developing a recipe, but whatever.

Spread the frosting over the entire cake until it’s as perfect or messy as you like.  Mine was rather messy, as you can see.

-Mads

Please check out the other wonderful recipes for Pumpkin Week!

Monday:

Kirsten @ Comfortably Domestic – Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls
Beka @ Kvetchin’ Kitchen – Pumpkin Streusel Bread

Tuesday:
Carrie @ Bakeaholic Mama – Pumpkin Pie Macarons
Jeanne @ Inside NanaBread’s Head – Hazelnut Pumpkin Waffles with Cinnamon Honey Butter

Wednesday:
Megan @ Country Cleaver – Mini No-Bake Bourbon Pumpkin Cheesecakes with Crumble Topping
Allison @ Decadent Philistines – Pumpkin Marshmallows & Pumpkin Spice Syrup
Shanna @ Pineapple & Coconut – Creamy Maple Bacon Pumpkin Risotto

Thursday:
Anne @ From My Sweet Heart – Pumpkin Doughnuts with Cream Cheese Icing & Candied Pepitas
Kat @ Tenaciously Yours – Marbled Pumpkin Gingersnap Tart

Friday:
Madeline @ Munching in the Mitten – Savory Pumpkin Tart
Lauren @ Climbing Grier Mountain – Pumpkin Mousse with Candied Squash
Kirsten @ Comfortably Domestic – Pumpkin Kiss Cookies

Saturday:
Beka @ Kvetchin’ Kitchen – Pumpkin Scones
Monica @ The Grommom – Pumpkin Ice Cream

Perfect Fudge Brownies

Last week a group of food bloggers threw an internet bake sale to raise money for Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America.  Through generous bids, we ended up raising a total of $1,680!  

 

I made “Perfect Fudge Brownies” for the event and I’ve listed the recipe below. 

 

 

Since I deemed them “perfect”, I had to go through MANY iterations of these brownies before I actually “perfected” the recipe.  I called in my food blog pals to assess why the first few attempts were so cakey (too much leavening with baking powder).  Then I had to remove eggs and add chocolate to increase the fudge factor.  It really was a process. Finally I found the winner!  These bad boys are fudgey, chocolatey, gooey perfections of your traditional brownie.

 

You will need:

• 2 cups sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 Tbsp pre-made coffee 
• 1 Tbsp vanilla
• 12 oz. semisweet chocolate chips
• 1.5 sticks butter
• 1/3 cup cocoa
• 1 scant cup flour
• 1 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Grease a 13 x 9″ baking pan.

Melt butter and chocolate over low heat until smooth.  Set aside. 

In a large bowl mix sugar and eggs.  Add coffee, vanilla, and slightly cooled chocolate mixture. 

Combine cocoa, flour, and salt in a separate bowl.

Slowly add dry ingredients to chocolate mixture until completely combined.  

Pour batter into greased pan.  Bake for 25-30 minutes (mine took exactly 27 minutes).  

Once cooled, you can top with powdered sugar or frosting.  I prefer them plain and still warm from the oven.  Mmmmm

Thank you to everyone who shared and participated in the bake sale!  

 

-Mads

Bake Sale Day!

Hello team,

Today is…drumroll please…BAKE SALE DAY!!!!

Click image to open a new window for the bake sale!

As you have already heard, I’m raising money in a Bake Sale via the internet for Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America.  You can bop over to Megan’s blog to see all of the wonderful and delicious prizes from cookies to brownies to signed cookbooks by some of your favorite bloggers!

I made these perfect fudge brownies and a big ole box of them could be yours!

 

It’s easy to win.  Megan explains it all on her site.  Go there now.  Start the bidding!

-Mads

Cookies for Crohn’s

My dear and lovely friend, Beka, is running her little booty off in a 1/2 marathon to raise money for Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America.  In order to maximize giving to kids suffering from those awful diseases, she’s throwing a bake sale on the internet!  I don’t know what could possible go together better than gastrointestinal troubles and internet food porn.

Beka and Megan are hosting the event on Megan’s blog, Wanna Be A Country Cleaver.  Click over to check out all of the nummy bake sale treats we are auctioning off to the highest bidder!  Many bloggers have teamed up to bring you cookies, treats, autographed cookbooks, gift packages, and more!  Click over for more information about how to bid on and receive prizes.

I decided to contribute “Perfect Fudge Brownies” (please refrain from any Crohn’s and Colitis jokes for the remainder of this blog post or we’ll have a real mess on our hands).

Since I deemed them “perfect”, I had to go through MANY iterations of these brownies before I actually “perfected” the recipe.  I called in my food blog pals to assess why the first few attempts were so cakey (too much leavening with baking powder).  Then I had to remove eggs and add chocolate to increase the fudge factor.  It really was a process.Finally I found the winner!  These bad boys are fudgey, chocolatey, gooey perfections of your traditional brownie.

If you’re interested in winning a whole big batch of these brownies, head on over to Megan’s page and bid!

Recipe to follow once the winners have been selected…

-Mads

CARAMEL WEEK: Caramel Banana Bread Pudding

Welcome to CARAMEL WEEK!!!  This week marks a momentous occasion when strong and courageous women bloggers stand up for what is good and holy in the world–caramel.

I honestly could not be more excited for all of the delicious recipes from caramel week!  To think of all of the caramel taste testing that went on during recipe development is mind-boggling.  There was a lot of spoon-dipping and finger-licking in my kitchen alone!

It took me a surprisingly long time to decide on what to make, mainly because caramel anything is amazing.  A local restaurant serves an incredible bananas foster bread pudding, so I thought a riff on that might be fun to try.  Boy, am I glad I did!  This caramel banana bread pudding is The Taste.

I always start my recipe development by scouring the internet and cookbooks for recipes similar to what I’m planning on making.  I usually check Foodgawker.com, FoodNetwork.com, America’s Test Kitchen, Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything, and whatever other books I have lying around.

Once I’ve found a few favorites, I examine the ingredients in each, decide upon what I think would taste the best, and what my ratios should look like.  I really liked the idea of challah bread because it is thick and eggy, which fits perfectly with an eggy bread pudding.  I decided to use more brown sugar in my recipe because bananas and brown sugar are like bread and butter, like Sonny and Cher, like a shmoke and a pancake.  I also knew that I would need to replace some milk with heavy whipping cream because…well…heavy whipping cream makes everything better.  Obviously.

After I decide upon my ingredient list, I make up ratios needed to increase the flavor town (pinch of salt here, extra vanilla here, etc.).  Eventually my bread pudding recipe was ready to go and I was ready to start cooking!

Slice your challah into 1 inch cubes like this.

I ran into a problem when I was pouring the milk and egg mixture over my challah; I didn’t have enough liquid to cover the bread!  Nothing to fear, I simply added a splash more cream and wrote down a new estimated amount on the recipe.

This is what your pudding should look like after soaking and smooshing for an hour in the fridge.

If my recipe is a winner, I post it on the blog.  If it’s terrible or mediocre, it’s back to the drawing board!  Recipe development sounds scary, but it’s really fun to get creative with your favorite ingredients and to try out new foods.

For the bread pudding you will need:

• 1 loaf challah bread (the loaf I found at the store was huge, so just use what you need to fill a 9 x 13 pan) — cut into 1 inch cubes
• 1 banana — mushed
• 3.5 cups milk
• 1 cup heavy whipping cream
• 5 eggs
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 3 Tbsp butter (melted and cooled slightly)
• 1 Tbsp cinnamon
• 1 Tbsp vanilla
• 1 Tbsp rum
• 1/2 tsp salt

For ingredients and directions for the salted caramel sauce, visit Comfortably Domestic’s blog.  Her sauce is wonderful.  It tastes almost like a Werther’s Original, but so much better!

Comfortably Domestic’s Salted Caramel Sauce (This was a key ingredient for the bread pudding because the saltiness mixed with the sweetness and took the dish to the next level)

1. Leave the challah out on a cookie sheet overnight to dry.  You can also dry the bread out in the oven at 325 for 10 minutes.
2. Place the challah in a 9 x 13 pan.  Do not use a glass pan for this!  The pan will go straight from the fridge to the oven and we don’t want any broken glass pudding mixtures in the bottom of our oven.
3. Mix all other ingredients in a large bowl until combined.
4. Pour mixture over bread.
5. Put the bread pudding in the fridge for 1 hour.  Squish the bread down into the milk every 20 minutes so that each cube of bread is soaking.  This allows the bread to absorb all of that nummy milk mixture and to ensure you aren’t inadvertently making croutons.
6. Preheat oven to 375 degrees
7. Bake for 45 minutes or until pudding is no longer jiggly.
8. Serve and drizzle Kirsten’s salted caramel over the top.

Check out the other wonderful caramel treats throughout the week with this schedule of events:

• Monday–Comfortably Domestic-Crockpot Dulce de Leche / Kvetchin’ Kitchen-Caramel Apple Pie
• Tuesday–Decadent Philistines Save the World-Salted Caramel Pork Loin with Shaved Brussel Sprout and Apple Salad / Bakeaholic Mama-Chewy Milk Dud Brownies
• Wednesday–Inside NanaBread’s Head-Chocolate Alfajores with Salted Vanilla Bean Caramels / Comfortably Domestic-Alfajores Caramel Sandwich Cookies / The Girly Girl Cooks-Almost Famous Fairground Caramel Sauce / Climbing Grier Mountain-Dulce de Leche Milkshakes with Caramel Drizzle
• Thursday–Tenaciously Yours-Popcorn Crunch Sundae / Kvetchin’ Kitchen – Red Wine Caramel Sauce
  
• Friday–Country Cleaver-Pear Caramel Mini Cheesecakes / Munching in the Mitten-Caramel Cake
• Saturday–Comfortably Domestic-DIY Dulce de Leche Coffee Creamer / The Hill Country Cook-Salted Caramel Pie

Have you ever created your own unique recipe?  How do you develop recipes?

-Mads