It was time for another meeting of our branch of The Clandestine Cake Club and this time the theme was Fall Fancies, the colours and flavours of Autumn.
I really fancied making a pumpkin cake, especially after doing the pumpkin cupcakes a week ago. I had specially bagged up the pumpkin puree in 200g and 440g (approx 1.5 cups) bags in preparation. One of my American cake friends, C, set up a board on Pinterest called Cakes to bake-Pumpkin and directed me to the Brown Butter Pumpkin Layer Cake. She had tried one or two of the recipes, and this one looked like something I could manage.
After converting all the measurements to metric, I got started. Once again, the pumpkin seemed to make the cake very moist and dense, even though I baked it for longer than the specified time and the inserted skewer came out clean. And it felt kind of wrong to burn butter on purpose, but I had to do it 3 times for the brown butter components of each section. Mmm, what a difference it made to the taste though. Spiced pumpkin sponge, cream cheese icing and caramelised pecan nuts - yummy.
That beauty is my contribution. Below are the cakes brought by all the bakers - from L to R we have Jackie's Cinnamon Apple cake, Jac's version of a Halloween Victoria Sponge - complete with choc fondant eyeballs, Ellen's Apple and Bramble bundt cake, Catriona's Pumpkin Maple bundt, my cake, Gary's Beetroot Choc cake and Carolyn's Sticky Pear and Ginger Cake. Sadly Kelly was unwell though, so we missed her cake.
To each event a baker is invited to bring a guest, called an eater, to help taste and eat the cakes. So in this case we had a couple more eaters than bakers - because there is always So Much Cake. You really do need the help, I promise.
And here is the lovely little cafe chosen for this event, on the Perth Road if you are local to Dundee... Although I think next time we'll need to chose a larger venue - this event had a long waiting list, so exciting!!
Just a query - for those of you who bake with pumpkin regularly, does this slice of cake look good to you? No, honestly I'm not fishing for compliments (though they will always be gratefully and graciously accepted) but it seems dense to me and my Mr...
looks awful - send it to me so I can "dispose" of it :)....no seriously, it looks OHHHHHH so good.
ReplyDeletePhew, thanks so much Cathy!! So relieved to hear that from an experienced pumpkin baker :)
DeleteWhat a fun event THAT was!! I adore pumpkin ANYthing! It all looks scrumptious! Actually, pumpkin says "love" to me because my mother's calling card was pumpkin bread. She baked it for everyone and was always passing out little loaves. There's nothing like a mom that bakes!
ReplyDeleteThanks Martha, my mum baked too - hence my fun with it. And my girls just love to help out, and especially to eat the results!
DeleteFor the record, the cake was awesome. But in my opinion, what really made it was those caramelized nuts on the top! Oh, I feel hungry right now just thinking about it.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the vote of confidence Heidi, and I totally agree, those nuts were delicious.
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