Pumpkin Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting & Pistachios

 

I’ve got a confession to make. Well, if anyone knows me well enough, they’d already know that I’m addicted to Pinterest. There. I said it. I’m addicted to Pinterest. I don’t always look at it as often as I would like but I love looking at all the beautiful recipes out there from the wonderful people I follow. And nothing has filled my Pinterest feed more than pumpkin recipes. Anyone would think it was Fall in the northern hemisphere! I was totally inspired for a sweet pumpkin cake.

 

 

In Australia, pumpkin is a very popular vegetable (also known as butternut squash). Nearly as popular as potato. We enjoy it mashed, baked, as a soup, in pasta, or salads. We love it and eat it all year round. You can’t buy it in a tin in the regular supermarket. I think only specialist US grocery stores might stock it. I’m a bit suss about eating it out of a tin. I much prefer the fresh stuff. I had a bit left in the fridge and steamed it in the microwave, then mashed it which produced a cup full. Just enough for a Pumpkin Cake.

 

 

I also had some wonderful pistachios in the pantry which I thought would compliment the spicy pumpkin cake.  I had a lot of trouble shelling the pistachios. A lot were going in my mouth and not in the bowl for the cake!

 

 

I used my ‘forever faithful’ cake recipe, making a few adjustments and baked in a square pan. I find it produces a lot more pieces of cake for hungry mouths.

 

 

You can’t beat a cream cheese frosting on just about any cake and I had all the ingredients for just that.

 

Pumpkin Cake topped with Cream Cheese Frosting & Pistachios

• 1 and half cups plain flour
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 cup pureed/mashed pumpkin
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 cup water
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 tablespoon white vinegar
• 6 tablespoons oil (I use canola)
• 1 teaspoon bicarb soda
• half teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup pistachio nuts, finely chopped

Frosting:

• 1 tub softened cream cheese
• 1/2 cup whipping cream
• 1/2 cup icing (powdered) sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1. Preheat oven to 180 C (375 F). 
2. Grease a cake pan well. 
3. Put the flour, spices, sugar, pumpkin and water in a bowl. 
4. Add vanilla, vinegar, oil, baking soda and salt. Mix until mixture is runny.
5. Pour into the tin. Bake 35 to 40 minutes. Cool for 10 minutes then take out of tin.
6. Mix frosting ingredients together and when cake has cooled, top with cream cheese frosting and sprinkle with finely chopped pistachio nuts

 

 

 

We’re having a bit of a heat wave here in Australia for the last month of Spring so we couldn’t be any further away from Fall weather but no matter what the weather, it’s always a good time for cake.

 

 

Disclaimer: I was gifted packets of pistachios from Wonderful Pistachios. All thoughts, recipes and opinions are my own.

 

 

 

Ham & Cream Cheese "grissini style" Potato Sticks

My kids love the range of snacks from Healtheries, so much so, that one packet is never usually enough. I pop a pack of these Potato Stix, for example, in their lunch box which keeps them satisfied until they get home from school and then they’re starving again! For something a little more substantial for an After School Bite, I’ve come up with these Ham & Cream Cheese “grissini style” Potato Sticks. It keeps them going until dinner time.

I’m taking part in the Healtheries #snacksophere challenge currently being run over at Kidspot. 

Potato Stix are a crunchy, chicken flavoured potato and rice snack. (They also come in a Roast Potato flavour.) These are just one of the great products in the Healtheries range. They have 50% less fat than normal potato chips, are dairy free, contain no preservatives or artificial flavours or colours and no added msg.

You can go crazy with what you add to the cream cheese or just leave it on it’s own. Any kind of flavoured

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cream cheese spread, dip, hummus or chutney would work wonderfully with or without the cream cheese.

I added a small amount of sweet gherkin relish to some cream cheese.

To assemble, spread a small amount of cream cheese on a thin slice of ham and place the potato stick on the edge and roll up.

Serve immediately as the Potato Stix will go a bit soggy if left too long but if your kids are anything like mine, they won’t last that long. And why should the kids have all the fun? For a grown up version to serve as a snack with drinks why not wrap with thinly sliced prosciutto spread with a little vintage cheese spread, quince paste or olive tapenade. You’ll love them just as much as I did.

Disclaimer: This blog post forms one of three entries into the Kidspot Voices of 2014 Healtheries #snackosphere challenge. I was given a selection of Healtheries snack foods to try. All opinions and photos are my own.

Zucchini Chocolate Cake with Cream Cheese Icing

I could’ve baked my usual No Fuss Fudge Cake and added grated zucchini, but I felt like doing something different. I looked in my Country Women’s Association (CWA) cookbook, “Country Classics” and found the recipe for Chocolate Zucchini Cake. It was quite a thick batter but a lovely dense, moist chocolate cake. I guess, when it comes to adding vegetables to cakes, you could practically use any recipe and just add either grated or pureed vegetables. I’ve been doing it for the last four years for my fussy daughter and she’s none the wiser except when it comes to zucchini. She spots the green bits on the grated zucchini so I peel it. I wonder if she’ll give me grief over this cake. Too bad. She’ll just have to miss out.

Zucchini Chocolate Cake
(from Lesley Cowan, Ballarat, Vic from “Country Classics” by the CWA)

1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1.1/4 cups plain flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 cup cocoa
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup oil
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp grated orange rind
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
1 egg
1 cup grated zucchini

Cream Cheese icing:
125g light cream cheese, softened
2 tbs icing sugar mixture
150ml whipped cream
1 tsp finely grated lemon rind

1. Preheat oven to 180 deg C and grease and line a ring tin (or any other cake tin you like).
2. Sift bicarb soda, flour, salt, cinnamon and cocoa and set aside.
3. Place butter, oil, sugar, orange rind and vanilla together and mix well.
4. Add egg, then mix in zucchini until combined.
5. Add dry ingredients.
6. Pour into tin and bake for 30 mins.
7. For cream cheese icing, beat all ingredients until combined and ice cake once cooled.

Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

Red Velvet Cupcakes

 

So, what’s the big deal with Red Velvet Cake? Just about every American blog I’ve ever read all mentions Red Velvet Cake. My curiosity got the better of me and I decided to do this recipe from here which is Australian so has ingredients and measurements that we’re used to. I made Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting.

 

 

It was a lovely, light, moist cake but just basically a chocolate cake but coloured red. I’m not sure that my kids need any more artificial ingredients in their diet so I probably won’t make it again. The cream cheese icing was an unusal, but nice, topping. Something I usually only save for Carrot Cake.

Wikipedia says:

“James Beard‘s 1972 reference American Cookery[2] describes three red velvet cakes varying in the amounts of shortening and butter. All use red food coloring, but the reaction of acidic vinegar and buttermilk tends to better reveal the red anthocyanin in the cocoa. Before more alkaline “Dutch Processed” cocoa was widely available, the red color

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would have been more pronounced. This natural tinting may have been the source for the name “Red Velvet” as well as “Devil’s Food” and similar names for chocolate cakes.[3][1] While foods were rationed during World War II, bakers used boiled beets to enhance the color of their cakes. Boiled grated beets or beet baby food are found in some red velvet cake recipes, where they also serve to retain moisture.

In Canada the cake was a well-known dessert in the restaurants and bakeries of the Eaton’s department store chain in the 1940s and 1950s. Promoted as an exclusive Eaton’s recipe, with employees who knew the recipe sworn to silence, many mistakenly believed the cake to be the invention of the department store matriarch, Lady Eaton.[4]

A resurgence in the popularity of this cake is partly attributed to the 1989 film Steel Magnolias in which the groom’s cake (a southern tradition) is a red velvet cake made in the shape of an armadillo.[1]“