Ugly Yet Yummy Pumpkin Cake

My family had an early Thanksgiving dinner this year, because unfortunately most everyone had to work on Thanksgiving. I know, it sucks. But at least we get a feast a little earlier then everyone else!

So anyway, I didn't want to make a pumpkin pie for dessert because a) everyone makes pumpkin pie and b) I've already made like three pumpkin pies this year. Luckily, I found this recipe online and it tasted like Heaven.

Unfortunately I must have done something wrong because it looked nothing like the picture.

Pumpkin Cake with Cream Cheese Filling;

Filling;

2 eight ounce packages of cream cheese, softened

1/4 cup sugar

1 egg

1 tbsp milk

1 tsps syrup

Cake Part;

3 cups sugar

1 3/4 cup of pureed pumpkin

1 cup canola oil

1 cup water

4 eggs

4 ccups flour

4 tsps pumpkin spice

2 tsps baking powder

1 tsps ground cinnamon

1/4 tsps ground nutmeg

1 tsps salt

1/4 tsps ground cloves (?)

nuts of a sort

raisins or something like that if you want

I'm gonna tell you up front that I did not use almost all of those spices. I just used cinnamon for everything. First of all, what in the world is a clove!?! And nutmeg!?!

Anyway, here's what you do.

For the filling;

Beat the cream cheese, egg, sugar, and milk in a bowl until smooth and creamy. Now, to soften the cream cheese, you're going to want to put it in the microwave or something. I left it out on my counter for like an hour and it barely softened. This caused it to instead take on a cottage cheese like texture.

  But whatevs.

Beat in the syrup and set that stuff aside.

For the cake part;

Beat the sugar, pumpkin, oil, water and eggs together. Now, another thing I might have done wrong was not add canola oil. To be quite honest, I don't even know what that is. So I put vegetable oil instead, and when I ran out of that (at about 1/2 a cup) I put in olive oil. Oops.

In a different bowl mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and spices. Once you mix those together, slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix together.

Stir in your nuts or whatever you decided to put into this cake. The website asked for walnuts and craisins, but a) my mom hates walnuts and b) craisins are extremely expensive and I like raisins better anyways.

So I chose peanuts and raisins.

I was way too tired to even bash those to "chopped" that night, as you can see. I think it was like 1:30 in the morning when I was doing this. 

ANYWAY.

Spray a casserole dish with cooking spray and then dust it with flour. Pour half of the cake mix in, then gently smear the cream cheese stuff onto it. All I really had to do for mine was pour it because I am a failure. 

After that pour the rest of the cake mix on top and out it in the oven at 350 for 50 minutes and hopefully it will look better than this.

Before baking;

 

After baking;

GORGEOUS. 

BUT I fixed it with some AMAZING FROSTING. YES, THAT'S RIGHT! I FINALLY MADE MY OWN FROSTING!!!! 

My Aunt Theresa gave me a recipe for some frosting and it tasted AWESOME. 

Frosting;

For every 1/3 cup sugar, you need 2 teaspoons Crisco. Mix those together well (you'll probably have to use your hands) and then add 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract, and mix again! DONE. Now, if you want the frosting to be creamier, all you have to do is add more vanilla! It's great!!! 

THANKS AUNT THERESA!!!

 

Awesome Sugar Cookies (extremely awesome)

I know, I know, I missed a week. Last weekend I went away to a church camp thing and meant to write this post on sunday night, but inevitably I got SUPER lazy and have basically done absolutely nothing this whole week.

But I promise I'm going to make it up to you, because I am about to gift you with the BEST sugar cookies you will ever make. Best part? I had everything I needed. I didn't have to hunt around for unicorn tears or the blood of a saber-toothed tiger to make these.

AND they're delicious. Does it get any better? Let me answer that, no, it doesn't.

So strap on your excited helmets because it's about to get awesome over in this corner of the Internet.

FIRST YOU WILL NEED;

NOW WAIT. Go get 2 sticks of butter. Put them on your counter and wait for like 30 minutes.

WHERE WAS I, OH RIGHT;

6 cups of flour

1 tsps baking soda

1 tsps baking powder

2 sticks butter, room temperture (see? I had reason for making you put your butter on the couter)

2 cups granulated sugar

3 eggs

1 1/2 sour cream

NOW HOLD THE PHONE, BECAUSE THIS RECIPE ALSO COMES WITH IT'S OWN FROSTING. HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF YOUR MIND BEING BLOWN.

FROSTING;

1 cup butter, room temperature

1 tsps vanilla extract

4 cups powdered sugar

6 tbsp heavy cream

food coloring (optional)

sprinkles (also optional)

Now, lets get started on our magical journey to Delicious Cookieville.

First, get yourself a medium sized bowl and mix 5 cups of your flour, baking soda, and baking powder in that bowl. Set it aside, it's purpose will come later on.

If you have a stand mixer, which I think is a giant bowl with a whisky thingy attached to a machine and something that my grandma used to make mashed potatoes in, get that out. I do not have one of those. So I had to improvise.

 You want to cream the butter and granullated sugar together until 'light and fluffy'. I tried just about everything I could to cream them together and in the end I just used my hands to mash them together like Play-doh. It all worked out in the end. 

It was still a little crumbly, but whad'ya gonna' do.

Next add the eggs in, one at a time, beating until it's mixed in well after each one.

Add the sour cream and vanilla until well mixed, too.

I kind of ran out of sour cream around half a cup and so I had to use these things, which I'm pretty sure haven't seen the light of day since 2009.

 

But nobody threw up or had to be taken to the emergency room so I'm sure they were fine.

I also seriously doubt I got even a cup of sour cream in there, even with those little packets. It didn't seem to affect it much in the end, but maybe if I had had the full 1 1/2 cups the cookies would have been even MORE epic. 

Here it is after everything liquidy was added.

So then, add the flour stuff to the liquidy stuff and mix until it's combined. It needs to be thick enough to roll, so you can add more flour, 1/4 cup at a time, until you get to 1 cup. So, again, only add one more cup, 1/4 cup at a time, and only until you think it's thick enough to roll out. You don't have to add the full cup.

 

 Anyway, after you get that all mixed up and ready for rolling, divide it into two sections and roll it until it's about 1 1/2 inch thick. Wrap in plastic wrap, and chill it overnight.

*The next day*

Okay, now, preheat your oven to 425 degrees and line a couple of baking sheets with wax paper. 

Flour a working area to prepare for rolling. Do not be stingy with that flour, trust me. Put it on EVERYTHING that will be touching that cookie dough. The rolling pin, the counter, the cookie cutters, YOURSELF. EVERYTHING. 

Now roll out one of your sections until it's about 1/4 inch thick. Get your cookie cutters, cut out some shapes, and pop them in the oven for 7-8 minutes!

Cool, right?! Wait, let me answer that for you. 

YES.

They tasted better after sitting a while in the fridge, though (don't ask me why). 

And I liked the frosting, but it kinda made the cookies look less cool.

But boy, was it GOOD.

Frosting;

Cream together butter and vanilla, then slowly beat in powdred sugar. Once smooth, add cream in a tablespoon at a time, until ready to spread onto cookies. If you want, add some food coloring :)

So, was that worth the wait?! I think it was. Make them, and you'll be convinced, too.