HCB: Pumpkin Cheesecake

I am slacking. Slacking.

Sorry about missing the LC NC last week. Every time I started writing, something come up and by the weekend I threw in the towel. So there.

I will be more in line in the future. Promise.

This Pumpkin Cheesecake is one of those desserts that surprised me. I was dreading making it. Not a big fan of pumpkin and cheesecake. The combo just sounds ugh!

But it's the last cake I have from the cheesecake chapter, so I was a little excited to make it because of that.

PPB: Great Pumpkin Pie

A short post to wish everyone a HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

For a Halloween celebration at work I made the Great Pumpkin Pie from the Pie & Pastry Bible. I am not a big pumpkin fan but I had a lot of leftover pumpkin puree from making a Pumpkin Cheesecake a few weeks ago. Not wanting the puree to go to waste, I froze them, hoping I can use them again.

The pie turned out pretty good. It uses a butter crust and not the cream cheese pie crust that I love so much. I much prefer the taste of the cream cheese crust though. What's different about this pie is that it calls for processing gingersnap and pecans and putting it at the bottom of the crust.

As for the taste, I'm eating my piece and it is not bad. I can't get more excited than that, pumpkin is just not a flavor I like :).

HCB: Pumpkin Cake (sans Buttercream)

I was so looking forward to this cake. I have never made any baked goods with Pumpkin before so I am finding myself being very curious as to how this would taste. Hector over at Rose's forum said it is "utterly delicious" and Rose herself said that this is the best non-chocolate cake ever so as you can imagine, it sounds very promising. I decided not to get the pumpkin pan but I have bought the Fleur De Lis Bundt Pan from Nordic Ware and I was planning on "christening" it for this occassion. So I was doubly excited. I was planning on making 1/2 recipe of the buttercream and sort of pipe it decoratively on the cake. Not sure if it makes sense but it sort of does in my head and I was curious to see if my plan will turn out.

Well, apparently fate has a different plan because I got terribly sick over the weekend so no cooking or baking - in fact no anything short of sleeping and eating. Late yesterday I felt slightly better so I made the pumpkin cake. No buttercream though. It was all I could manage to do before collapsing. As those who have made this cake will tell you, the cake itself is very easy to do. Pretty uneventful really. It tells you to toast the walnuts and then mix it with the flour, baking soda, nutmeg, cinnamon, and salt mixture. Apparently you don't have to process the walnuts into powder, just coarsely chop it (I break them into pieces with my hands). Then mix the eggs, brown sugar, canola oil, and walnut oil. I substituted walnut oil with the same amount of canola oil - not sure how often I will use walnut oil so I decided not to purchase it. Then it tells you to add vanilla and then the pumpkin puree. Then add the flour mixture and mix until it all blended, pour into the pan and bake for 35-40 minutes (if using bundt pan). I ended up baking mine for 45 minutes. I am eating the pumpkin cake as I am writing this. It is so good! So tender and moist (I noticed this seems to be a trend for Rose's cakes). Even though I made this with AP flour again it is very tender and moist. It makes me think of fall, this taste medley of pumpkin, cinnamon, and nutmeg. YUM!