Pumpkin Poppers

I was clearly in a pumpkin mood yesterday. After uploading a bunch of recipes to Paprika I set out to buy ingredients for all kinds of pumpkiny autumn themed foods - some are still waiting to be cooked up but a few are already done. The pumpkin cake was a hit at last night's Small Group reconnection event as were these little bites of goodness.

Once the poppers are rolled in cinnamon sugar, they kind of look like sloppy donut holes more than mini-muffins. They taste great with a cup of coffee on a cloudy morning that belies the coming of another day of heat. Uggghhhhhh....

Pumpkin Poppers

recipe from Domestically Speaking

1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. nutmeg

1/2 tsp. allspice

1/8 tsp. ground cloves

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 egg

1 tsp. vanilla extract

3/4 cup pumpkin

1/2 cup milk

For Coating

1 stick unsalted butter, melted

2/3 cup sugar

2 tbsp. cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 F and spray mini muffin tins with non-stick cooking spray.

Combine flour, baking soda,salt, and spices in a bowl and whisk until combine.

In another bowl, mix oil, brown sugar, egg, vanilla, pumpkin, and milk. Pour in flour mixture and mix until just combined. Fill mini muffin tins until almost full and bake 10-12 minutes.

Melt butter in small bowl. Mix sugar and cinnamon in a separate small bowl. After popper cool for a few minutes, dip them in the butter and roll them in the sugar mixture.

Pumpkin Cake with Brown Sugar Glaze

Last week I was in New Haven visiting Emily and reveling in the cooling weather of fall, which sure made coming back to some of the hottest weather I have EVER experienced in San Diego not fun at all. I went from eating pumpkin muffins and watching rain fall on the Yale campus to sweating it out in temperatures that have hit as high as 109 degrees!

Tonight I decided to pretend like fall weather is here and make my own pumpkin dessert for a church supper. A part of me felt guilty at baking something I knew my own husband would never eat but with all the church folk instructed to bring a dessert, I figured there'd be plenty of the cakes, cookies, and brownies Martin loves. Sure enough, he had plenty to choose from, with a huge Edelweiss bakery cake and lots of plastic containers piled with those icky store-bought cookies I hate but Martin loves.

When we sat down to eat I noticed numerous people at our table had a piece of my cake on their plates. This is always an interesting situation - should I mention right off that I made the pumpkin-y creation all these friends were about to eat? What if one of them took a bite and declared my cake horrible tasting? How would we both recover from the embarrassment of such a statement and who would wind up having to leave the church, in order to restore civility and brotherly (sisterly) love?????

Obviously, I wouldn't be writing about this if the news were bad - Lynn L. ate her piece and began raving about the warm tastyness of the cake. (Not bad since she and her husband own Edelweiss Bakery.) Carol F. chimed in that it was the best thing she'd eaten in a long time, adding, with a certain tone of awe, that her piece was still warm. (Yea, I guess it was since I'd barely taken the cake out of the oven when Martin started shooing me out the door!)

The cake is gooey and good. If I can't have any evidence of the changing season, biting into a big piece of pumpkin-y cake will have to do for conjuring up autumn.

Pumpkin Cake With Brown Sugar Glaze

⅓ cups Water

1 can Pureed Pumpkin (15 Oz)

2 whole Eggs

1 Tablespoon Vanilla Extract

2 teaspoons Pumpkin Pie Spice

1 box Yellow Cake Mix (18 Ounce Box)

1 teaspoon Baking Soda

1 cup Brown Sugar, Divided

½ cups Flour

4 Tablespoons Butter, Melted

¼ cups Granulated Sugar

1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract

¼ cups Heavy Whipping Cream

Preparation Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350F.

In a large bowl mix together the water, pumpkin, eggs, 1 Tablespoon of vanilla, and pumpkin pie spice until well combined. Add the cake mix and baking soda and mix until just combined.

Grease a 9×13 pan with butter and pour batter into pan.

In a small bowl mix together 1/2 cup of brown sugar, 1/2 cup flour and melted butter. Use your fingers to sprinkle over the top of the cake. Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

For the glaze, combine the other 1/2 cup brown sugar, granulated sugar, 1 teaspoon vanilla, and heavy cream in a saucepan and bring to a simmer. Remove from heat and stir until all sugar is dissolved.

When cake is finished baking, poke holes in the top with a toothpick. Pour glaze over the cake, making sure to cover all surfaces. (Apparently, a toothpick is fine for this job. In a moment of lunacy, I decided that those tiny holes wouldn't be big enough so I dug out a wooden skewer and used the sharp end to poke the surface of the cake. My glaze dribbled nicely but I had to patch up the very visible holes left behind so it wouldn't look like small rodents had been burrowing over the surface of my creation. Sometimes it's a GOOD thing to just follow a recipe as it is written!)

Serve cake warm or at room temperature.