pumpkin cake

so littlefoodie sparkles and i had a pretty good halloween. i think i am pretty ripped now though from holding him the ENTIRE trip around the neighborhood. he had his very first chocolate bar and despite my "not my child, never!" attitude it was pretty darn cute watching him get his hands and face all gooey..its halloween so i can be cool at least once a year.


despite my half-assed efforts to pull together a garden gnome costume for the 2 of us he put the brakes on the idea. so he became the cutest dragon ever and i turned the garden gnome disaster into a wizards hat and beard.





for the festivities we made a pumpkin cake. pumpkin on the inside, pumpkin on the outside. and although i didn't get any since a certain bigfoodie daddy ate my piece all up i heard it was pretty tasty. the other day i scooped up a box of vanilla bean cake mix from trader joes to test it out..i added some pumpkin and a few other ingredients and it came out nice and moist. and a yummy cream cheese frosting for the top. we used from fruit leather for the face and plastic spiders for garnish. someone sent me the original idea off of kraftfoods.com..not a site i ever frequent but this cake was too cute to pass.

enjoy!

1 package cake mix*
1/2 cup organic cane sugar
1/2 cup canola oil
1 cup canned organic pumpkin*
1/2 cup water
1 tsp pumpkin spice
4 large eggs

preheat oven to 350F. grease a fluted pan.

in a large bowl beat all ingredients together. pour into pan and bake 45 minutes.

cream cheese frosting
1 pkg cream cheese, at room temp.
1/4 cup unsalted butter, at room temp
dash of pure vanilla extract
4 cups organic powdered sugar (trader joes brand)
green, red and yellow natural food coloring
1 ice cream cone cup

beat cream cheese and butter and vanilla until light and fluffy.
add powdered sugar a bit at a time.

scrape out 1/4 cup of frosting and tint green. frost the ice cream cone for the stem.
for the remaining frosting mix the yellow and red to make orange and frost the cooled cake rounded side up.
put stem on and pipe remaining green down sides.

cut out faces with fruit leather or decorate however you want!

note:



the trader joes vanilla bean cake mix is great. all natural ingredients...unbleached flour, real vanilla, baking soda, natural cane sugar...absolutely no funky ingredients that you can't pronounce.
also, their organic pumpkin is awesome! try it out.