Happy Birthday to ME! Incredibly Easy Cake

Happy Birthday to ME!! 


Yes, even though I'm 30-something-ish ::mumbles:: I still celebrate my birthday with great enjoyment.  This recipe is one of a few others in the running that I might make with my kid's for my birthday. I'll share the cake with them , but they don't get any of my birthday cheesecake.    


This recipe was originally brought to my attention by the Disheveled Mommy.  I fell in love while pregnant and craving all things baked with pumpkin.  Sadly my store shelves were lacking canned pumpkin and even fresh whole pumpkins until recently.   I instead settled for the Applesauce and Cake mix version. (delicious but did not satisfy my craving at the time)  Here is that original cake.


The Cake Mix and Canned Pumpkin Recipe originally from the Hungry Girl

Seriously, that's all the ingredients!

Ingredients: 
18.25 oz box Moist-Style cake mix. (I used carrot cake since my store had no spice cake.. shh don't tell the kids)
One 15 oz. can pumpkin puree (not the pumpkin pie mix..)
One Can of Frosting






Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees
2. Prepare a pan with non-stick cooking spray.
3. Combine the ingredients in a large bowl and mix thoroughly.  (batter will be thick like brownie batter)



Thick Batter (you can add 1/2 cup water, but cake will be less dense)

4. Smooth batter into prepared pan and bake in the oven according to the direction on the box.

Ready to bake

Pull up a chair and watch it bake like my son does. or I guess you can go wash the dishes...

I like topping the cake with a little bit of the cream cheese frosting while still slightly warm so the frosting melts into the cake making it extra delicious.

  Then let it cool and finish frosting it. 

And finally the best part!

The first slice.. mmm

Some Sanity in the Madness

It's that time again this year. Time to start your OVENS!! Sorry, had to get that out of my system. Every year I go baking mad and it all starts with the baking marathon that is Thanksgiving.  My very large family still gathers together every year even though we have all grown and had our own families.  In this gorging spectacle my job has always been the pies.  I love to bake, if you don't... tough cookies and nasty store bought brick cookies to you too.  I'll add a few more tips for Thanksgiving to satisfying even the most baking challenged.

Various Thanksgiving Tips

Even with all the dangers of stuffing turkeys people still enjoy doing it.  Nothing like bonding over a family struck down with food poisoning.  To be safer this holiday after draining the excess blood from the turkey heavily sprinkle kosher salt on the inside cavity of the turkey.  Let sit for 5-10 minutes and rinse in cold water.  The salt will draw the excess blood out of the cavity.

A good time saver is to cut all the vegetable for the hor'dourves tray the day before and just store the cut vegetables in an ice bath in the fridge.  You can also cut the veggies in to decorative flowers if the mood strikes you.  The easiest to make by far is a mum.  Cut a criss-cross pattern (4 lines intersecting from 2 different sides in an X) into the top half of a radish and store in an ice bath for it to "bloom" open.

When making your apple pies this year for thanksgiving be sure you simmer the apples in a pan before baking in the pie shell.  If you don't precook the apples you could end up with a large gap between the top crust and the apples. 

A extra tip when making the pie dough crust use ICE cold water.  It keeps the fat from blending easily with the flour.  The less you blend the dough the flakier the crust. I prefer placing all my ingredients in the freezer after measuring out the dry ingredients (salt and flour) into a freezer bag.  In a separate bowl cool the fats (butter or shortening).  I cool all ingredients separately for 30 minutes before blending together as usual.

While baking your pies and the crust starts to darker long before the pie will be done. Make a ring around the outside edges of your pie with tinfoil.

To get that extra golden look to your crusts lightly brush the crusts with a egg wash.  Sprinkle with sugar to give it extra crunch.

Egg wash for browning baked goods. 1 egg whipped with 1TB water.  Brush on baked goods lightly to get a golden sheen.  Then bake as usual.  This will even work well on rolls.

Adding to the Joy of Baking

There are many things I can't live without bake without. The one thing most important to me for baking is my can of Baker's Joy cooking spray.  I can't say enough about how much I love that baking spray.  Even some of the stickiest and most troublesome recipes will always slide right out of the pan when using Baker's Joy.  Unlike when you oil then flour dust a pan separately, when using Baker's joy it uses only a fine mist of oil and flour.  Leaving much less chance for a simple mistake like too much or too little ruin your sweet treat.

My all time favorite packaged brownie mix is easily the Ghirardelli triple chocolate brownie. I buy mine in bulk at Sam's Club. 4 batches of this gooey brownie come in one box.  When we eat the last batch it is truly a bittersweet day.

My favorite use for brownies if they make it beyond the warm gooey treat fresh from the oven is turning them into hot fudge brownie sundaes.  Even with a lactose intolerant husband I can't live without my standard french vanilla ice cream to dress up with yummy treats like these brownies or even a favorite cookie.  It is the one ice cream you can always count on in my freezer.  Dress it up or mix something in, vanilla ice cream is a good base to start many delicious treats.  French vanilla is even more yummy with its vanilla bean speckles and custard-like base.

Here is a delicious hot fudge sauce recipe.

Hot Fudge Sauce

Ingredients

• 1 stick butter
• 4 ounces unsweetened chocolate
• 3 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 - 13 ounce can evaporated milk

Directions

1. In top of a double boiler over hot water, melt butter and chocolate.
2. Gradually add sugar and half the milk alternately.
3. Stir well after each addition
4. Add remaining milk, stirring constantly.
5. Cook until mixture is thick and sugar dissolves.

Notes

May store in a glass jar in the refrigerator.