Martha's Pumpkin Cake

 Since my beloved and I are not Mr. and Mrs. yet, we still spend time at our respective family's homes for Thanksgiving. I wanted to make a dessert for his family as a little gift, so I tried a new pumpkin cake recipe. I turned to Martha Stewart (she has yet to fail me in the recipe department) for her Pumpkin Spice Cake recipe. It can be found here, along with a tasty Honey Frosting recipe.

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
• 2 large eggs
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 (15-oz) can solid-pack pumpkin puree

1) Preheat oven to 350. Spray 2 6" pans (could potentially be three pans) with Baker's Joy.

2) In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, salt, and pumpkin pie spice. In a larger bowl, mix together the wet ingredients and sugar. Combine the dry with the wet, and gently mix until smooth.

3) Spoon batter into pans and smooth out the tops. Bake until a butter knife inserted comes out with only a few moist crumbs. (I would go for 55- 60 minutes with these 6" pans. The original recipe called for a 9" square baking pan.)

4) Cool the cakes for 10 minutes in the pans, then turn them out onto a rack (right-side-up) to cool completely.

And, of course, I used my reliable little cream cheese buttercream to pair with this delicious cake. I wanted it to look like a carrot cake, so I made little pumpkins to go around the edges with some hanging vines. Just a simple little design.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!!