Easy Peasy Pumpkin Squeezy

Whew, I've been neglecting this blog for awhile.  Finals week was awful, so I plan on kicking back and blogging much more often now that winter break is here.  On the downside though, I'm so poor right now that I don't know if I'll be able to buy any of the ingredients for all the super awesome Christmas cakes I had planned...*sigh*

When I last posted, I had mentioned I made several cakes for Thanksgiving.  Well, Cake Number 3 was a lovely pumpkin bundt cake.  I was planning on carving the shape of it myself, but once I come across the idea of using two bundt cakes instead, it was too easy to pass up.  (I was just all caked out at this point.)

Then came my search for the perfect recipe.  I decided on this one from allrecipes.com

Ingredients
* 1 (18.25 ounce) package yellow cake mix
* 1 (3.4 ounce) package instant butterscotch pudding mix
* 4 eggs
* 1/4 cup water
* 1/4 cup vegetable oil
* 1 cup canned pumpkin
* 2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
* Whipped cream


Directions


1. In a large mixing bowl, combine the first seven ingredients. Beat on low speed for 30 seconds; beat on medium for 4 minutes. Pour into a greased and floured 10-in. fluted tube pan. Bake at 350 degrees F for 50-55 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool in pan for 15 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely. Serve with whipped cream if desired.

I only had one bundt pan, so it took double the time to bake the two pumpkin halves.  In the meantime, I started working on the frosting.  I thought a cream cheese buttercream frosting would be amazing, so I took a recipe from MarthaStewart.com.  I dyed the majority of it orange, but dyed some green and brown for the stem and leaves, too.  (You just cover an ice cream sugar cone in brown frosting for the stem, sooo simple. :D )

This frosting did taste great, but I had a few issues with it when it came to covering the cake.
When I had both cakes baked and cooled, I put the two halves together with frosting.  This left a very apparent line across the middle of my cake.  When I began to frost the entire "pumpkin" I unfortunately discovered the frosting was too thin to completely hide the cake (and the line across the middle) beneath it.  I struggled with it for a good 30 minutes before just coating the whole thing and giving up.  I was super late for a friend's birthday party at this point, so I left, planning to get home early before my family Thanksgiving to give the cake another coat and to add the vines and leaves.

Except....that never happened.  In fact, I was super late to Thanksgiving too.  (Being late is kind of a thing with me. Heh.)  And! To top it off, some of the cake was eaten before I ever got to take a picture of it. :(

All and all though, I'm okay with how everything turned out.  It was still an orange pumpkin shaped cake with a nice brown stem.  Some vine detailing would have been nice, but that one layer of orange frosting got a bit thicker over night, so I'll take that instead.  Not to mention, I happened to think it tasted preeeettty darn awesome.

So, if you have the time to fiddle with the frosting for this one, I'd recommend it.  It's super simple, just a bit time consuming.

Toodles for now!

<3 Rachel

Turkey Time

As far as cakes go, Thanksgiving week felt a little bit crazy.  Okay, so I only baked three cakes, but I put so much time into these things that I felt super busy all week. 

*ahem*  But without further ado, meet Edgar the Turkey!

Edgar may appear stoic, but he is sad for two reasons: 1. He's upset that I have nothing but a camera phone to "capture his glory". (He's a very arrogant turkey, you see.) and 2. His decapitated head is now chillin' in my freezer. (Pun intended.)

Anywhoooo....

The concept of Edgar began the week before Thanksgiving, as I was announcing to my bestie, Janey, that I was going to make a "pumpkin flavored pumpkin cake" for my mom's Thanksgiving.  To this, Janey replied, "Or how about a turkey flavored turkey cake!"  She was kidding...hooopefully ;)... but when my dad requested a Thanksgiving cake as well, I picked up the idea, minus the turkey flavoring of course. :P

This cake is made mostly out of chocolate cake (the box mix kind, because I'm fancy like that), Scotcheroos, buttercream, and fondant.    I formed the middle part of his body by baking in a 10" round pan, cutting the cake in half, stacking the two halves, and then placing them flat side down.  I used a Bake and Fill pan that I picked up at Goodwill to bake the front part of his body, but I think the same shape could be achieved from smaller round pans cut in half and stacked. 

 His tail-feathers were made out of Scotcheroos, that I pushed into half a saucepan to get the curved shape.  (I think chocolate covered rice krispies would have worked just as well.)  Lastly, his head is made out of an ice cream sugar cone for support and Scotcheroos (minus the chocolate) to give it shape.

It is all covered in fondant and I used the buttercream to coat and paste pieces together.

If you'd like any more directions on how to make yourself an Edgar, feel free to email me.  Also, I'll be happy to share the recipes I used, if you don't feel like waiting for me to post them in a later entry.

Hope everyone had a happy thanksgiving :)

<3 Rachel