The Ramseys: Pumpkin Cake

I have made Laurie's Fresh Apple Cake for EVERYTHING lately. It's officially my go-to cake recipe now (but when Brian's not around to assist, I have to confess that I don't peel the apples). Sunday was dessert night at small group and they had previously enjoyed the amazingness that is the Fresh Apple Cake, so I figured it was as good a time as any to try something new.

I went to my one of my dearest and safest cooking resources, allrecipes.com, and found a simple pumpkin cake recipe.

Ingredients

2 cups white sugar

1 1/4 cups vegetable oil

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups canned pumpkin

4 eggs

2 cups all-purpose flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

2 teaspoons baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 12x18 inch pan. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Set aside.

In a large bowl combine sugar and oil. Blend in vanilla and pumpkin, then beat in eggs one at a time. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in nuts. Spread batter into prepared 12x18 inch pan.

Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Allow to cool.

I made an easy cream cheese frosting to go with by mixing:

1 8oz. box cream cheese (room temp)

1 stick of butter (softened)

2 cups confectioner's sugar

1-2 t. Vanilla

I thought I would be fancy and make a double layer cake. It fell apart a little and the top layer was wider than the bottom layer. But I managed to put them together just so that you couldn't tell it was a flop. But then I iced it. Have I mentioned that I'm terrible at frosting a cake? But Brian came home and re-frosted it. We make a great culinary team. Brian is wayyyy too meticulous to cook an entire meal. He can do it for sure, it just takes him forever because he does everything exactly right. But when it comes to tedious finishing touches, Brian is the man. He has saved many a cake for me.

And this cake was sooo good. At small group, I noticed that our leader's little girl who's about 3 or 4 was eating a piece. I asked her if her cake was good (because kids are painfully honest and she didn't know it was my cake) and she said yes, that it was yummy. So there you go.