One hundred Camilas

Yesterday was a momentous day: my favorite person named after a Cuban revolutionary came to town. Naturally, I had to bake something to celebrate this occasion. I had re-created Heidi's delicious spice cake earlier this week using canned pumpkin. The recipe had only used 1/2 cup of the pumpkin, leaving me lots left to work with. I considered making the cake once again, as Dani, an avid fan of this cake, had not gotten to sample the most recent trial. Upon further thought and exploration of options, though, I decided to branch out. The extra sugary Magnolia Bakery Cookbook provided the solution in the form of a recipe for "Pumpkin Bars with Cream Cheese Icing." Amazingly enough, I had all the ingredients. I had been saving the cream cheese for a baking project intended to impress someone at work, but this was clearly more important.

I intended to stick with the recipe completely, minus the nuts (ew). I struggled to reach the full amount of pumpkin called for in the recipe, but with lots of scraping and spatul-ing of the can I think I made it happen. Either way, it was impossible to tell in the end. I also decreased the cinnamon by 1 tsp because nothing can ruin a cake like too much cinnamon.

Pumpkin Cake (I don't know what pumpkin bars are. This was a cake) with Cream Cheese Frosting
adapted from recipe by Allysa Torey and Jennifer Appel

Cake part:
* 1 1/2 cups flour
* 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
* 1/2 tsp cinnamon
* 1 tsp baking soda
* 1/4 tsp salt
* 1 1/4 cups canned pumpkin puree
* 1 1/4 cups sugar
* 3/4 cups vegetable oil (I considered using butter instead, but oil was definitely the way to go on this one. Moist!)
* 3 eggs

Frosting part:
* 8 oz cream cheese, room temp
* 3 1/2 tbsp butter, room temp
* 2 ish cups powdered sugar
* 1 tsp vanilla

Cake: Preheat oven to 350˚ F. Grease a 9 x 13 inch baking pan.

Mix the flour, b.p., cinnamon, b.s., and salt in a small bowl or liquid cup measure (efficiency!).













In a large bowl, beat the pumpkin, sugar, oil and eggs until smooth and well combined (I used the hand beaters to ensure the ingredients were sufficiently blended). Pour in the dry ingredients and mix well. Pour the batter into the pan and bake 28-33 minutes.



























While the cake is cooling, make the frosting: Using beaters or a standing mixer, whip the cream cheese and butter together. Add the vanilla and beat again. Add the sugar by the half cup until sweetened to your liking. When the cake has cooled, spread a thick layer of frosting over the top. Kidnap your friends and being them to your house and force them to eat the cake (between eight of us the cake did not survive the night).

Lastly, my apologies for the shitty pictures. As with all extremely tasty things I make, it was impossible to remember to photograph pieces of the cake before they were rapidly demolished. But trust me, it was beautiful.