Good morning, friends. Thank you so much for the wonderful birthday wishes yesterday! This post was created for the November culinary events at Kitchen Play.
Kitchen Play brings together food bloggers and PR professionals through sponsored events like the Progressive Party, the SideCar Series and the Pampered Pantry. This month’s sponsor was Nestlé Kitchens, and my secret product turned out to be Libby’s 100% Pure Pumpkin — which made me very excited.
My assignment was to create a deconstructed pumpkin pie — to turn pumpkin pie on its head. While brainstorming, one idea kept coming back: cake.
I don’t usually reach for cake — I favor richer, more decadent desserts and I’m not great at decorating. But cake wouldn’t leave my head, so I decided to embrace it.
Ideas kept multiplying. Not just one cake, but two. I wanted to combine many flavors that wouldn’t fit into a single cake, so I made two layered cakes.
I became a cake-baking machine. In one day the oven produced:
- crunchy cinnamon apple
- pumpkin spice
- chocolate fudge
- peanut butter
I also made a pumpkin cheesecake and tucked it inside the chocolate and peanut butter cake for extra richness.
By the end of the day I was covered in batter — flour in my hair, butter under my nails and a little too much baking powder in the air. The result: two tall layer cakes.
Cake #1 combined two layers each of peanut butter cake, crunchy cinnamon apple cake and spiced pumpkin cake, with cinnamon sugar buttercream between each layer.
Cake #2 featured a pumpkin cheesecake center wrapped in chocolate fudge cake, with peanut butter cake as the outer layers, all covered in a thick dark chocolate fudge chip frosting.
There are many recipes involved. Most were tried-and-true ones I relied on to avoid last-minute disasters. Below are the components I used for the final creations.
Peanut Butter Cake
Source: allrecipes. I followed the recipe and doubled it to make four cakes, increasing the peanut butter to intensify the flavor.
Chocolate Fudge Cake
Source: Kevin and Amanda. This dependable chocolate cake is a favorite for cupcakes and layers alike.
Pumpkin Cake
Ingredients:
1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup canned pumpkin
1/2 cup milk
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Preheat oven to 375°F. Cream butter and sugars until fluffy, add eggs one at a time, then vanilla and pumpkin. Whisk dry ingredients together, add half to the wet mix, stream in milk while mixing on low, then add remaining dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Divide batter between two 9-inch pans and bake 20–25 minutes.
Crunchy Apple Cake
Source: myrecipes. I added large apple chunks to provide a satisfying crunch and texture contrast.
Pumpkin Cheesecake
Source: Sugarcrafter. I halved the recipe, omitted sour cream and added an extra 4 ounces of cream cheese to maintain a rich texture.
Cinnamon Sugar Buttercream
2 cups butter, room temperature
2 pounds powdered sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla
1 tablespoon cinnamon
Cream butter and sugar together, add vanilla and cinnamon. If too thick, add a tablespoon of milk at a time until you reach desired consistency.
Chocolate Fudge Chip Frosting
Source: allrecipes. I doubled this recipe and stirred in mini chocolate chips for extra texture and flavor; it’s reminiscent of a favorite store-bought fudge chip frosting.
So there you have it: this non–cake-baker ended up making two giant layer cakes packed with pumpkin and fall spices. We ate cake for days — it was fabulous, delicious and worth every crumb.
This recipe was created for the Kitchen Play Sidecar Series, sponsored by Nestlé Kitchens. I was compensated for developing an original recipe using Libby’s 100% Pure Pumpkin.