Pumpkin Gooey Butter Cake

I got this recipe from http://www.razzledazzlerecipes.com/ in my search for the perfect Thanksgiving recipe. It kind of tastes like Pumpkin Pie over cake - pretty good!

Cake:

1 (18 1/4-ounce) package yellow cake mix

1 egg

8 tablespoons butter

Filling:

1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened

1 (15-ounce) can pumpkin

3 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

8 tablespoons butter, melted

1 (16-ounce) box powdered sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon nutmeg

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

To make the cake: Combine all of the ingredients and mix well. Pour batter into a lightly greased 13 by 9-inch baking pan. Prepare filling.

To make the filling: In a large bowl, beat the cream cheese and pumpkin until smooth. Add the eggs, vanilla, and butter, and beat together. Next, add the powdered sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and mix well. Spread pumpkin mixture over cake batter and bake for 40 to 50 minutes. Make sure not to overbake as the center should be a little gooey. Serve with fresh whipped cream.

*I tried to make a topping for this recipe as well - it looked like it needed something else - since I only did half of the recipe in an 8x8 pan, I took some of the extra cake mix and mixed with with butter and sugar. It definitely added to the goodness of the cake, but I think a crumbly cinnamon topping might be better.
Yield: 6 to 8 servings

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread

With the upcoming holiday season, I keep coming across recipes for pumpkin and chocolate, which seems like an odd combination to me. (I'm not sure why I would think that anything is odd with chocolate though!) I decided to try baking a Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread. I found this recipe from Magnanimity's blog (http://5purposedriven.wordpress.com/2006/10/20/1051/). She says it can make bread or cookies but I found the consistency too watery to form cookies. I also added more chocolate chips than the recipe called for. The bread was excellent! I plan to try more recipes with this combination.

Makes 3 (9×5″) loaves

3 cups sugar
1 T ground nutmeg
1–15 oz can pumpkin puree
2 tsp baking soda
1 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 tsp salt
2/3 cup water
1 cup miniature semi-sweet chips (I used regular semi-sweet chips and added about 1.5 cups)
4 eggs
1/2 cup walnuts, optional (I omitted)
3 1/2 cups flour
1 T ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350. Grease and flour three 9×5″ loaf pans. (I only made one loaf and cut the recipe in thirds.) Combine all dry ingredients in large bowl; set aside. In large bowl, combine sugar, pumpkin, oil,water, and eggs. Beat until smooth. Blend in the dry ingredients. Fold in chocolate chips, and nuts (I omitted, not a fan of nuts in bread), if desired. Pour batter into prepared loaf pans. Bake for 45 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool on wire racks before removing from pans.
*Note: This bread should freeze well, half of it is actually in my freezer and I'll let you know how that is after Thanksgiving!

White Chocolate Ribbon Pumpkin Cake with Maple Glaze

This was actually supposed to be made as a full bundt cake, but I don't have that type of pan (some kind of baker I am!). I have mini-bundt pans, so I made mini cakes. ;) This picture is also before the maple glaze was added on top. I found this recipe from Cookie Madness (http://www.cookiemadness.net/?p=5026).

Filling:
3/4 cup white chocolate morsels or white chips or 4 oz white chocolate
8 oz cream cheese, softened
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Cake:
3 cups all-purpose flour (13.5 oz)
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 sticks (8 oz) butter, softened
2 cups granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
4 eggs
1 (15-16 oz) can pumpkin

Glaze:
1 cup powdered sugar, sifted
1 tablespoon maple syrup (I used sugar-free)
1/2 teaspoon maple extract (imitation can be used too)
2-3 tablespoons heavy cream (I used half & half)
1/8 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour a large bundt pan or spray with flour added baking spray.
Prepare filling. Place white chips in a microwave safe bowl and microwave on high for 1 1/2 minutes, stopping every 30 seconds to stir. Beat cream cheese, sugar and vanilla into melted chips. Set aside.
In a medium bowl, combine flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda and cinnamon. Set aside.
In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar until fluffy. Beat in vanilla extract. Beat in eggs, one by one and continue beating on high speed of electric mixer for 1 minute or until mixture is light. Stir in pumpkin. By hand or using low speed of mixer, stir flour mixture.
Pour about one third of the pumpkin batter into bundt pan. Pour white filling over pumpkin batter, keeping white batter away from sides of pan as much as possible. Pour remaining pumpkin batter over white batter.
Bake for 55 minutes or until cake begins to pull away from sides of pan. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes; Turn from pan. Let cake cool completely before glazing.
Prepare glaze. Stir together sifted powdered sugar, maple syrup, 2 tablespoons of cream and salt. Beat until smooth. If glaze is too thick, add remaining tablespoon of cream. Drizzle over cooled cake; Store cake in refrigerator.
20 Servings

Blueberry Boy Bait

I had some frozen blueberries that I wanted to use, so I searched and found this recipe from http://www.smittenkitchen.com/. The cake was very tasty! Quick and easy to whip up as well. I didn't want to make as much as the recipe called for, so I half'd the ingredients in an 8x8 pan and baked for about 30 minutes.

Serves 12, generously
2 cups plus 1 teaspoon all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon table salt

16 tablespoons unsalted butter (2 sticks), softened

3/4 cup packed light brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

3 large eggs

1 cup whole milk (I used skim, that's all we had)

1/2 cup blueberries, fresh or frozen (if frozen, do not defrost first as it tends to muddle in the batter)

Topping

1/2 cup blueberries, fresh or frozen (do not defrost)

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
For the cake: Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour 13 by 9-inch baking pan.

Whisk two cups flour, baking powder, and salt together in medium bowl. With electric mixer, beat butter and sugars on medium-high speed until fluffy, about two minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until just incorporated and scraping down bowl. Reduce speed to medium and beat in one-third of flour mixture until incorporated; beat in half of milk. Beat in half of remaining flour mixture, then remaining milk, and finally remaining flour mixture. Toss blueberries with remaining one teaspoon flour. Using rubber spatula, gently fold in blueberries. Spread batter into prepared pan.
For the topping:Scatter blueberries over top of batter. Stir sugar and cinnamon together in small bowl and sprinkle over batter. Bake until toothpick inserted in center of cake comes out clean, 45 to 50 minutes. Cool in pan 20 minutes, then turn out and place on serving platter (topping side up). Serve warm or at room temperature. (Cake can be stored in airtight container at room temperature up to 3 days.)

Raspberry Brown Butter Bars

I got this recipe from http://www.smittenkitchen.com/. I altered the original recipe (they used cherries instead of raspberries). I'm not a big fan of cherries. Everyone raved about these bars!

Makes 16 square bars

Crust:
7 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

1/3 cup sugar

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup plus 1 tablespoon all purpose flour

Pinch of salt

Filling:

1/2 cup sugar

2 large eggs

Pinch of salt

1/4 cup all purpose flour

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, diced

30 raspberries

Make crust: Preheat over to 375°F. Cut two 12-inch lengths of parchment paper and trim each to fit the 8-inch width of an 8×8-inch square baking pan. Press it into the bottom and sides of your pan in one direction, then use the second sheet to line the rest of the pan, perpendicular to the first sheet.

Using rubber spatula or fork, mix melted butter, sugar, and vanilla in medium bowl. Add flour and salt and stir until incorporated. Transfer dough to your prepared pan, and use your fingertips to press the dough evenly across the bottom of the pan. Bake the crust until golden, about 18 minutes (it will puff slightly while baking). Transfer crust to rack and cool in pan. Maintain oven temperature.

Make the filling: Cook butter in heavy small saucepan (a lighter-colored one will make it easier to see the color changing, which happens quickly) over medium heat until deep nutty brown (do not burn), stirring often and watching carefully, about six minutes. Immediately pour browned butter into glass measuring cup to cool slightly.
Whisk sugar, eggs, and salt in medium bowl to blend. Add flour and vanilla and whisk until smooth. Gradually whisk browned butter into sugar-egg mixture; whisk until well blended.
Arrange raspberries, or the berries of your choice, in bottom of cooled crust. Carefully pour browned butter mixture evenly over the fruit. Bake bars until filling is puffed and golden and tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 40 minutes. Cool bars completely in pan on rack.

Oreo Fudge Bars

Wow, these bars are sweet! I am a huge chocoholic, but not the biggest fan of fudge (it tastes too sugar-y and not chocolate-y enough for me). These bars are rich and a big sugar-y for me. However, I got raves about them. I got this recipe from Baking Blonde's Blog (http://bakingblonde.wordpress.com/). (I also forgot to take a picture of these after they were finished, but here it is before it went in the oven!)

1 16oz. package of Oreo cookies
1 stick butter, melted
1/4 tsp satl1
(14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk (I used Fat Free)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup milk chocolate chips (could use another 1/2 cup semi-sweet chips if you like - I did because I didn't have milk choc chips)
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips (I didn't have these, so I used regular semi-sweet)

Preheat the oven to 325. Line a 9×13 pan with foil and lightly spray with PAM. Set aside 6 Oreo cookies for the toppings. In a small food processor (or blender) grind the rest of the cookies. Add the salt to the crumbs and stir to combine. Melt butter and gently stir together with the cookie crumb mixutre. Press firmly into the bottom of the prepared pan. Coarsely chop the remaining cookies into chunks and set aside. Over a double boiler or in the microwave, melt 3/4 cup semi-sweet and 1/2 cup milk chocoalte chips together with the condensed milk and vanilla.Stir frequently until smooth. Spread evenly over the prepared cookie crust. Sprinkle the mini chocolate chips and the Oreo cookies chunks over the top of the filling. Press down gently into the chocolate topping. Bake for 20-22 minutes oven. Allow to cool on counter for 1 hour. Chill in fridge until completely cold and set before cutting into bars.

Mike's Chocolate Cake Cookies

Ok, these are really titled "Amazing Chocolate Cake Cookies" from http://www.bakingbites.com/. However, my brother-in-law Mike likes them so much that I have decided to rename them for my blog. :) They really are amazing - very chocolatey! It's probably the amount of sugar that makes them so good (and so bad for me). I actually did sustitute some Splenda the last time I made them (only about 1/4-1/3 cup) and couldn't tell a difference.

1 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 1/2 cups white sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

2 cups semisweet (or chip of your choice!) chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350F.Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time and mix to incorporate. Add the vanilla and mix thoroughly.Mix together flour, baking soda, salt and cocoa powder in a separate bowl with a fork or whisk until even in color. Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture and stir until well combined. Stir in chocolate chips.Bake for 11 minutes at 350 F. The cookies will appear to be just barely firm with a sheen to their surfaces. Allow to cool on the sheet for a couple of minutes before removing to a cooling rack to cool completely. Store in airtight containers.

Notes: Follow the baking time EXACTLY! They come just right at 11 minutes! I tried these with peanut butter chips (in picture), which were good but doesn't quite have the same effect as the chocolate chips. Next time I am trying a mixture of milk chocolate and peanut butter chips.