This is part four in my series of pumpkin dessert recipe roundups. I’ve already looked at cheesecakes, trifles, and bread puddings. And you thought pumpkin pie was the only thing you could serve at Thanksgiving! For this post, I’m turning my attention to pumpkin cakes.
Who doesn’t love cake? It’s really the ultimate dessert, isn’t it? That’s why we serve it at all the important milestones of our lives. You get married, there’s a cake. Baby shower? Cake. Birthday? Cake. You get the picture.
Pumpkin is a great ingredient to use in cakes. I love spicy desserts, full of cinnamon, nutmeg, and other classic flavors of the fall. These cake recipes all include these wonderful flavors that are associated with pumpkin and offer something different for those of you who don’t love custard (which is part of bread pudding, pumpkin pies, and trifles). Plus, just about all of them include cream cheese frosting. Is there anyone who doesn’t like cream cheese frosting?
This recipe for pumpkin raisin bars is what I used last year for Thanksgiving. They turned out to be delicious, but I had some issues with them. For some reason, the center of the cake completely collapsed when I took it out of the oven. I think I was too concerned with making sure that they didn’t overcook, that I undercooked them. Luckily, it made a huge amount of the bars, so I was able to salvage the parts that were cooked, and just slathered even more cream cheese frosting on them. They turned out really well, despite my issues.
Nothing sounds better to me than this pumpkin cake with sage ice cream and pumpkin cherry compote, but come on? Who really has the time to make a compote, bake a cake, and whip up a homemade ice cream during this crazy holiday season? I know I don’t, which is a shame because I love sage and I really want to try it.
If you’re a huge fan of pumpkin pie and apple pie, you may want to try this recipe that combines the best of both: pumpkin-apple streusel cake. It looks delicious and I’m sure that the two flavors mesh really well together. Nothing says fall like apples and pumpkin.
If you’re looking for something a little more traditional, how about this recipe for spiced pumpkin layer cake with cream cheese frosting. It may just look like a basic layer cake, but with coconut, pineapple, and dried currants stuffed into the cake, there’s a lot going on.
With a title like pumpkin gooey butter cakes, is it any wonder that this recipe comes courtesy of Paula Deen? Essentially, she just undercooks the cakes to leave the center a little gooey. Isn’t that I what did last year?
This pumpkin-honey cake recipe caught my attention because the cream cheese frosting has pumpkin in it too. The directions have a whole lot of decorating instructions, though, and that makes me a little nervous. I’m a lot of things, but expert cake decorator is not one of them.
Do any of these recipes have your mouth watering?
Clacked by Bob Degon
on Nov 20, 2009 @ 10:00 EST5EDT
