Pumpkin Pie Spice, homemade

Lots of American recipes I see now use Pumpkin Pie Spice in them.  I have checked closely, but nowhere sells it.  So then I checked my trusty friend, Google, and hey presto!  I found a recipe (or twenty!). 

I signed up a while ago to the Betty Crocker website, as they do so many different items and hav so many recipes from which to choose.  So when I saw that Betty had a recipe for spice mix, well, that just had to be the one I chose. 

As you can see on my photo, I didn't use quite all the right amounts.  And to be perfectly honest, I found it too heavy on the cloves even with these proportions.  So I added in another 2 teaspoons of ground cinnamon, to take off a bit of the clove taste, and it works better for me.

If you make some, do let me know what you think - and how much you enjoy baking with it.  Mmm, smells like Autumn!!

Dundee loves Clandestine Cake Club, Autumn style

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...

 

Autumn in a pastry? Cinnamon apple turnovers

Here in the lovely part of Scotland we have chosen to call home, it's most definitely Autumn.  Not only are the leaves changing colours and starting to fall (very pretty and fun for the kids, but a mess in the garden), but the temperature has dropped noticeably and we are barely getting into double figures these days (well, perhaps up to 11c/52f). 

I have some American friends, and am in an American cake group, and love how much they love their Holidays.  Starting with Halloween, then Thanksgiving then Christmas, it's just one big party for the next few months for them.  And all the blogs and Facebook pages are talking about baking and cooking with seasonal ingredients, most noticeably pumpkin and spices. 

I read about a really easy, tasty-sounding idea on one of the pages/blogs and didn't have all the ingredients to hand but wanted to make it.  So I (thought I bookmarked it, or emailed the recipe to myself) bought the ingredients the next weekend and got excited.  Then couldn't find the recipe for love nor money.  I mean anywhere!  I tried The Girl Who Ate Everything, not her.  I tried Created by Diane, not her.  It wasn't even Betty Crocker, for goodness' sake.   I was fast running out of patience, but more importantly I felt, desire to bake, eek.  So from my vague memory and without knowing correct proportions I went ahead with these Cinnamon Apple pastries...

 That's a sheet of store-bought puff pastry cut into eight rectangles  (ooh, could it have been on their site??), topped with apple pie filling and a mix of cream cheese (or their site?), icing sugar (confectioners/powdered sugar) and ground cinnamon.  I had to guess at the amounts, and just kept adding until it tasted good.

But I ended up with too much filling, and not enough space within each pastry rectangle, so did the best I could to pinch the edges together.  Then to bake...

Uh, they kind of exploded a little.  But mmm mmm, they tasted great!!  They were best warm, but The Team still managed to gobble them up at afternoon tea that day.  If you happen to see the recipe anywhere, please get in touch!