Pumpkin Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

While searching for recipes to take to the Holiday Party, this pumpkin cake was a close second to the Lemon Squares I ended up bringing. I just love pumpkin too. I think this cake would have been a nice addition to our Pumpkin Cook Off in October. It's a piecemeal pairing of two Pioneer Woman recipes. You can find the original pumpkin cake here and the cream cheese frosting here. I like to bake but obviously shouldn't be consuming large amounts of sweets on my own, so I brought a small one to work (which was met with complaints from my boss about calories as she shoved a piece in her mouth) and am taking a larger one to my boyfriend's office warming party tonight. I hope it's a hit!

Mmmm.....I will admit, my finger may have accidentally dipped into this frosting before it made it onto the cake.

I ran into a little snafu with my dishes and filled them too full, resulting in an overflow situation. Normally this would have been fine but I baked them in these Pyrex dishes because they have lids and travel well. Unfortunately, the top layer of cake had to be removed so there was room for frosting. However, the crumbly part of cake doesn't take frosting as well as the outside (I found this out the hard way). If you run into the same issue, make sure your icing is very warm and pliable before you get to the frosting process.

Not so pretty but still delicious!

Pumpkin Cake

2-1/2 cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons Cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon ground Nutmeg (a little goes a long way!)

1 stick softened butter

1-1/2 cup sugar

3 whole eggs

1-1/4 cup plain, unflavored yogurt

1 cup canned pumpkin puree

Preheat oven to 325° F. Spray a cake pan with cooking spray. Mix flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a medium bowl and set aside. In a larger bowl, beat together butter and sugar. Add eggs one at a time, beating after each. Add pumpkin and yogurt to butter mixture and mix gently until just combined. Gradually add flour in increments, beating until just combined. Pour batter into pan and bake for 35-40 minutes (mine went longer), or until set. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely before frosting.

Cream Cheese Frosting

1/4 cup softened butter

4 oz cream cheese

1/2 pound powdered sugar* or 2-1/4 cups powdered sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Mix all ingredients until whipped (I don't have a mixer, but beating by hand worked fine. I'm working on my biceps!). Taste the frosting for quality control purposes. Smear all over completely cooled cake!

*Who measures anything in pounds?! I had to consult one of my favorite cooking resources to help with this one. Onlineconversion.com is really useful when making small or large batches of recipes. All those fractions can get confusing! Who knew 16 tablespoons make a cup?!