Heavenly Pumpkin Spice Cake
Ingredients:
1 package spice cake mix 18.25 0z
1 cup white flour
1 4oz instant vanilla pudding mix
1/3 tsp of salt
1 cup canned pumpkin
1 cup sour cream
½ cup vegetable oil
½ cup water
4 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 tsp cinnamon
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350
Combine all ingredients and beat on medium speed for 5-6 minutes. Pour into prepared pans. It will easily make a 9x13, 2 8” round cakes, or about 40 cupcakes.
Baking time will be increased because of all of the added ingredients. I baked my cupcakes for about 25 minutes. For cakes about 40-55 minutes. It is done when you touch the cake and it bounces back in the center.
Whipped Pumpkin Filling:
4oz softened cream cheese
½ cup powdered sugar
½ cup canned pumpkin
1 tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp nutmeg
¼ tsp vanilla
½ cup whipping cream
mix cream cheese and powder sugar until well blended. Add pumpkin, cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla, mix until well blended. Slowly add whipping cream beat for 1-2 minutes. Chill for 1-2 hours before using.
Tip: to fill cupcakes use a bismarck tip (Wilton #230) and piping bag.
Cream Cheese Icing:
1 stick butter softened
8oz cream cheese softened
1 lb powder sugar (4 cups)
1 tsp vanilla
Cream butter, cream cheese and vanilla, slowly add powderd sugar. Mix until well blended.
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Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes
These cupcakes were so delicious! They are pumpkin spice cupcakes with a whipped pumpkin filling and cream cheese icing. Click here for the recipe!! Yum, Yum, Yum!
Click here for a tutorial on how I made the chocolate leaves.
To fill cupcakes you use a bismarck tip, Wilton #230. To make the swirl of icing on top I used Wilton tip 1A. Oh, so yummy!
Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?
I made the cake for my son's 5th birthday. He wanted a Spongebob castle cake. I cheated on this cake. Since I don't have an edible image printer I printed the from my regular printer and laid them onto a piece of fondant I cut to match the image. The castle parts are from the Wilton Castle set. It is the first time I used it. They were kind of a pain to cover in fondant. I ran short on time so I didn't have time to add his name to the cake :(
OH! I used cinnamon toast crunch cereal for the dirt. I crushed it in my food processor. It tasted so good!! Much better than anything else I have ever used for dirt.
Making Chocolate Leaves
This is the first time I have tried making chocolate leaves, it was actually very simple. First you pick some leaves that you want to duplicate. I had a nice maple tree out front that I just picked leaves from. I washed and dried them completely. You don't want any water getting around your chocolate, it will seize it up and that is not good.
Next I melted chocolate. I used chocolate almond bark because that is what I had on hand. I have noticed with almond bark it takes longer to dry. Once melted, I used a paint brush to "paint" the chocolate onto the leaves.
I set the leaves on a baking sheet covered with parchment and placed them in the freezer just for a few minutes to get the chocolate to dry nice and hard.
After the chocolate has frozen, carefully peel the leaf from the chocolate. It is very fragile, so be careful. For a finishing touch I dusted the chocolate leaves with gold luster dust.
Baking with a Flower Nail
This is a flower nail, it is used to make flowers but it has another function! If you take it and turn it upside down in your baking pan like in the picture below it will help bake your cake so your cake is more likely to come out nice and rounded on top instead of having sinkage in the middle. It will conduct heat to the center of your cake. It kind of works like a heating core without leaving a big hole in your cake. I put 1 nail in an 8-10 inch pan and 2 nails in 12 inch or larger. Make sure and "paint" them with your homemade cake release so they don't stick to your cake. Did I mention how great the cake release works? I forgot to take a pic of the cake when it came out. I guess you'll have to take my work for it, the cake came out beautifully! 
