Pumpkin Spice Bundt Cake

We went on a really fun wine tasting trip for my friend Joe's birthday.  I knew they had plans for breakfast, lunch, and snacks during the tour, but I wanted to make sure he got a cake...and I wanted to try a pumpkin cake recipe!  Joe failed at gathering breakfast for the group, so we dug into the cake first thing in the morning and everyone loved it!  After wine tasting, we came back and finished off the cake.  You could say this recipe was a hit!

Ingredients:

• 1 box spice cake mix
• 2 boxes instant vanilla pudding
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 1/4 cups water
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup pumpkin puree
• 4 cups powdered sugar
• 1 stick butter, softened
• 3-4 splashes milk
• 2 Tbsp cinnamon

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Grease a bundt pan.

Combine cake mix, puddings, oil, water, eggs, and pumpkin with an electric mixer.  Pour into pan.

Bake 40-45 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Let cake rest on counter in pan for 10 minutes.  Invert cake onto serving plate.  Cool completely.

In a small bowl, combine powdered sugar, butter, and milk with an electric mixer until creamy.  Stir in cinnamon.  Frost cooled cake.

This cake was perfect for fall.  I can't wait for an excuse to make it again.

Recipe from Mix and Match Mama

Babycakes

I got a Babycakes cake ball maker for Christmas this year and was so excited that I could hardly wait to try it out!

The New Years Eve party I was going to turned out to be the perfect excuse to take everything out of the box and give it a go!

I modified a yellow cake mix by using oil as directed, using milk instead of water and only using half the amount, and adding an extra egg.  They turned out perfectly...except for when I filled the wells too full!

This will be a fun toy to keep learning with!

 And, because my friends are awesome, they fought over the "UFO" and "rocketship" cake balls, as they called them.  The "imperfect" ones were the favorites!

Chocolate Better than Sex Cake

Since I love cake, and chocolate, and bundt cakes, and chocolate bundt cakes, and recipes that use cake mixes to make my life easy, this baby knocked my socks off!  

My friend Britt (B-Hugs) and I planned a date night together.  Date nights with friends always mean baking something delicious and chocolatey for this girl!  Spending time with a friend is made even better by smelling this delicious cake baking while watching a chick flick or sharing stories together.  She has a picture of this cake as her Facebook profile picture right now, and according to all our friends who haven't even tasted it, we need to make this again!

Ingredients:

• Cooking spray and flour for preparing the pan
• 1 box devil's food cake mix
• 6 ounces (1 cup) semisweet chocolate chips
• 3/4 cup chopped pecans
• 1 small package (3.9 ounce) chocolate instant pudding mix
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1/4 cup water
• 4 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla 
• 1 stick butter
• 4 Tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/3 cup milk
• 4 cups powdered sugar

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees with a rack in the center.  Lightly mist a bundt pan with cooking spray, then dust with flour.  Shake out the excess flour.  Set pan aside.
Mix together 2 Tablespoons of the cake mix, the chocolate chips, and the pecans in a small bowl.  Set aside.

Britt's first time with
pan frosting.

Place the remaining cake mix, the pudding mix, sour cream, oil, water, eggs, and vanilla in a large mixing bowl and blend with an electric mixer.  Stop mixer and scrape down sides of bowl with a rubber spatula as needed.  The batter should be thick and well blended.  Fold in the chocolate chip and pecan mixture until well distributed.  Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top with the spatula.  
Bake 50 to 55 minutes, until the cake springs back when lightly pressed and just starts to pull away from the sides of the pan.  
Remove pan from oven and let cool on a wire rack for 15 minutes, then invert and remove from pan onto rack or serving platter to finish cooling (another 20 minutes, if you can stand it!).

She couldn't believe we
were using 4 cups of
powdered sugar!

Prepare chocolate pan frosting as follows:
   Melt butter in a medium saucepan over low heat, 2 to 3 minutes.
   Stir in the cocoa powder and milk.  
   Bring mixture just to a boil, stirring, then remove from heat.
   Stir in powdered sugar until the frosting is thickened and smooth.
Pour frosting over cake and enjoy!

Adapted from the Cake Mix Doctor

Chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting

I was overwhelmed by a need to bake something last week, but I was also pretty exhausted and was, surprisingly, not in the mood for a bundt cake.  I decided I couldn't go wrong with chocolate and peanut butter.

I love to bake, and it tends to happen randomly, and some of the people close to me wish they knew when to expect freshly-baked treats.  I think Tall Dark and Nerdy has started to develop this ability as a kind of sixth sense.  As soon as I pulled the cake out of the oven he called asking if I wanted to hang out and watch a movie when he got home from work in an hour.  Such a convenient sense for him to have.  I was able to make the frosting, frost the cake, put half of it in a container, pick up a movie, and head over to his house to surprise him, and he was pretty pleased.

This is not my prettiest or richest cake, but it's a really great cake for a normal day when you need a little chocolate and some peanut butter (which is nearly every day for me).  The frosting is delicious, and goes great with a cold glass of milk.

Ingredients:

• 1 package devil's food cake mix
• 2 Tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 1/3 cups milk
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 3 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Mmmm look at all that peanut butter!

For frosting:

• 1 cup creamy peanut butter
• 8 Tablespoons (1 stick) butter, at room temperature
• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 3 to 4 Tablespoons milk
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Lightly mist a 13"x9" baking pan with vegetable oil spray and set aside.

Combine cake mix, cocoa powder, milk, oil, eggs, and vanilla in a large mixing bowl with an electric mixer.  Blend on low speed for 1 minute, stopping to scrape down the sides as needed.  Increase the speed to medium and beat for another 2 minutes until the batter looks thick and combined. 

Pour the batter into the prepared pan, smoothing it out with a spatula.  Place the pan in the oven.

Bake 40-45 minutes until cake springs back when lightly pressed with your finger and just starts to pull away from the sides of the pan.  Remove from the oven and cool for 30 minutes before frosting.

Peanut butter frosting.
Can't go wrong here!

While cake is cooling, prepare frosting as follows:

Blend peanut butter and butter in a large mixing bowl with an electric mixer on low speed until fluffy, about 30 seconds.  Stop mixer and add the powdered sugar, 3 Tablespoons milk, and the vanilla.  Blend on low speed until the sugar is well combined, about 1 minute.  Increase the speed to medium and beat another minute until the frosting lightens and is fluffy.  Blend in up to 1 Tablespoon more milk if the frosting seems too stiff.

Have cake, will travel!
And will have a happy man!

Spread on the top of the cake and out to the edges with a rubber spatula.  Slice and serve!

Adapted from Cake Mix Doctor

Devilishly Delicious Chocolate Cake

Over wine and dinner of quinoa stuffed peppers with a friend, we realized we needed something chocolatey and delicious to finish our evening right.  We picked a recipe from my favorite dessert cookbook, The Cake Mix Doctor, and modified it a little for what I had in the house.  The result:  exactly what we needed.

Ingredients:

• Vegetable oil spray for misting the pan
• Flour for dusting the pan
• 1 square (1 oz.) bittersweet baking chocolate, finely chopped (unsweetened works, too)
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 package devil's food cake mix
• 1 package (3.9 oz.) chocolate instant pudding mix
• 4 large eggs
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• Chocolate frosting

Directions:

Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees.  Lightly mist and flour a Bundt pan, shake out excess flour and set pan aside.

Combine the chocolate and water in a small saucepan over low heat.  Heat, stirring constantly, until the chocolate is melted, 3 to 4 minutes.  Set aside.

Begin to combine cake mix, pudding mix, eggs, buttermilk, oil, and vanilla in a large mixing bowl.  Add in the melted chocolate.  Blend with an electric mixer, stopping to scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula as needed.  The batter should look thick and well combined.  Pour the batter into the prepared pan, smoothing it out with a rubber spatula.  Place the pan in the oven.

Bake the cake 45 to 50 minutes, until it springs back when lightly pressed.  Remove the pan from the oven and cool for 20 minutes.  Invert cake and remove it from pan.  Allow to cool another 20 minutes, if you can (we definitely couldn't), then spread with warm frosting, and enjoy!

Adapted from The Cake Mix Doctor