It’s fall and it started to get cooler. You know what time is that, right? BAKING time!

Yayyyy… not sure why but the fall season seems to be perfect for baking. So many goodies in mind so little time. In this weird Covid-19 era, where we all try to survive, to live our life to the fullest with all the new “normal”, thought baking won’t crossed my mind. I was totally wrong. Probably because I have been binging on the British greatest baker show on Netflix :). Gave me tons of idea. That for now, happily sitting in my head.

It started with early Thanksgiving at a dear friend’s house, where I baked the Lapis Surabaya with 45 yolks and it just triggered the bake on button. Kept thinking and thinking…glad that work was in the way and I couldn’t make myself go to the kitchen.

Then, a friend’s birthday plus started of her marriage life , officially. I thought, grilled chicken. But then, I decided to let the wonderful ladies do the cooking and I am sticking to what I love, baking.

So for that night I made the Kahlua chocolate cake with Kahlua Buttercream. It is my chocolate cake recipe to where I mixed the espresso with Kahlua in the cake batter. Then do the same thing with the buttercream. And brushed the cake with more Kahlua before frosting. I did not make it too boozy..I wanted to :).

Then the baking continued. The next day, I was checking my pantry for idea what to cook. I saw my 2 cans of pumpkin puree. I know I bought those for something, I think. :). Ideas from pumpkin roll cake, pumpkin bread, pumpkin cranberry rolls for Thanksgiving dinner/lunch, and pumpkin cake…. I decided on pumpkin cake. The thought of 3 layers cake always get me. I just love love love seeing the layers inside the cake…one of my obsession..seeing perfect layer and frosting. Yepp I am that crazy. I hate when people cut cake with one knife and keep on cutting without cleaning the knife. To get clean cut, wipe the knife with every cut..or was it just me?

The frosting for the pumpkin cake, I add maple syrup and maple flavoring to the cream cheese frosting. It was so good, I had to finish the 2 tablespoons leftover frosting that night. Somebody had to do the dirty work right? I volunteered.

Recipe for the cake. If you see my recipe book, you’d be confused. I have A B C steps and arrows instead of long words. I like to make it simple. Because, for me, when I read recipes that looks like a novel, I lost my motivation to make it. I like to analyze the recipe, read it and simplify that process.

Pumpkin Cake

A – Whisk all these dry Ingredients.

2 3/4 cups AP Flour

1 T (Tablespoons) Baking Powder

1t (teaspoons) Baking soda

1T pumpkin pie spice

1/2 t salt – if you are using salted butter, you can omit this

2 Cups Sugar (you can mix half white half brown)

B – softened

1 1/2 sticks of Butter

C – whisk these wet ingredients in another bowl

4 Eggs (Large)

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1 can pumpkin puree (you can use sweet potato puree if you want to make sweet potato cake, use cinnamon and nutmeg instead of pumpkin spice and make cinnamon buttercream to frost the cake).

1/2 cup whole milk

1 t vanilla bean paste

How to make it?

Preheated oven 350 degree, floured and greased 3 – 8″ pans.

Whisk A, add B into A and whisk until crumbly like when you want to make pie crust. Then pour 1/2 of C into mixture of A+B, whisk, scrape the side and whisk from low to medium speed until it mixed well about 20 seconds, add more C and whisk again for another 20 seconds.

I like to weigh my batter. that way I get equal amount and height of the layer. My kitchenaid bowl is 1027 grams. The weight of the bowl with the batter in it was 3022 grams. So the weight of the batter for each pan should be 665 grams. So, weigh your mixer bowl first.

Bake the cake for about 30 – 35 minutes. Once it’s done, take it out and let it cool. I didn’t wrapped and freeze the cake this time since I just want to eat them :). I usually planned ahead when I bake. So that I can wrapped and freeze the cake at least 24 hours it makes a moist cake and easier to frost.

While it’s cooling down, let’s make the frosting. Now when it comes to frosting, I never really measure my powder sugar. I don’t like mine overly sweet. You can adjust it to your liking.

Maple cream cheese frosting.

For this 3 layers cake.

Whisk:

2 packages cream cheese

1 pack (2 sticks) of butter – I used 1 pack Kerrygold Butter or Plugra, those are my fave.

1/2 T vanilla

1/2 T maple flavoring

Then add 1/4 cup maple syrup, keep whisking. Add about a little less than a bag of the powdered sugar. Whisk again. Last I add 1/4 cup heavy cream and just whisk quickly until it mixed. Not too long. Set it aside and frost the cake with it once it’s cooled down, the cake is.

Easy peasy right? Baking is just as simple as ABC. Give it a try and let me know what you think? Mine is almost gone. Cake takes 1-2 days to be gone in my household. Trying so hard not to bake as often :). Hard hard hard….