Monday, September 10, 2018

Amost Dump Pumpkin Snack Cake



Okay, so the top cracked. Does that bother anyone? Hmm. Not once it's frosted!

We love baking with pumpkin in the fall. But today I wondered if I could make an "almost" dump cake with pumpkin. Ta da! Apparently so. There are two steps that I wouldn't skip, but really, this is hard to mess up and very quick to make.

The two steps are melting the butter and mixing the flour with the dry ingredients before blending them with everything else. Melted butter often makes for a moister cake. A lot of people use oil instead of butter when baking with pumpkin, but butter does add a special taste and crumb. And mixing the flour with the spices only makes sense. After all, you don't want all your baking powder or all your cinnamon clumping together. Imagine getting one of those bites! Bleah!

But other than that, I honestly dumped everything into the mixing bowl. In fact, I even tried a new variation on my usual cream cheese frosting. The ingredients are the same,  but instead of hauling out the mixer for a small amount of frosting, I made it with the whisk attachment of my Braun Multiquick hand blender and it worked great!

One note: the cake (without frosting) is on the less sweet side. If you prefer sweeter cake, increase the granulated sugar to 1/2 cup.

Almost Dump Pumpkin Snack Cake

Preheat oven to 350. Grease and flour an 8 x 8 baking pan.

1 stick unsalted butter (8 tablespoons)
1 1/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
pinch of cloves
pinch of salt

1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar (or 1/2 cup to suit your taste)
2 eggs
1 cup pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)
1 teaspoon vanilla

Melt the butter and set aside. Place the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and salt in a bowl and bend well with a fork. Set aside. Dump brown sugar, granulated sugar, eggs, pumpkin, and vanilla in the mixing bowl. Beat. Alternate beating in the flour and butter until it's all combined. Pour into prepared pan. Bake 40-45 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.

Cream Cheese Frosting

4 tablespoons soft butter
3 tablespoons soft cream cheese
about 1 cup of powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Place butter and cream cheese in the blending cup. Using the whisk attachment, blend until well combined. Add half the sugar and mix in. Add the remaining sugar and the vanilla and mix. Continue to whisk for about two minutes. Spread over cooled cake.

Mix flour with spices.

Dump in almost everything else!

Nice and thick!

Shh. Frost it and no one will know about those cracks!

Coming November 27th!

3 comments:

  1. You've made me examine my pumpkin aversion.
    I like winter squashes, so why do I shy away from pumpkin?
    I think it's because of pumpkin pie. It was served annually and I was (or so I thought) expected to like it.
    I like custard, but not pumpkin pie. Go figure.

    So, in honor of this introspection, I need to try this recipe!
    Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This looks good, Krista! I'm printing it out now!

    ReplyDelete