I love autumn!
I just wish it was longer (apologies to all you ski-loving people!). The colours are fantastic, the weather is sublime and we can eat pumpkin.
Every. Single. Day.
Sublime indeed.
Apologies to those of you that don’t like pumpkin (what’s wrong with you anyways?). You can come back in a couple of days when I do my next post…
…which will be about brussel sprouts.
Apologies, again, to those of you that don’t like brussel sprouts.
Ughhh…
I picked up this book, The Pastry Queen by Rebecca Rather, a couple of years ago because it has the most incredible picture of a lemon meringue tart on the cover…aaaand, the inside is full of glorious baked goodies that were sold at the Rather Sweet Cafe in Texas.
I always dreamed of travelling there, visiting the bakery and trying one of each thing for sale (for quality control purposes of course!). Every page of this book has the yummiest things – mostly sweet but some really awesome savoury dishes too (like their chicken pot pie!). The bakery, sadly, closed in 2011 but I believe Rebecca is opening another place in Texas soon.
Road trip!!!!!
Ingredients:
1 c pecan pieces, 1/2 c reserved for the streusel topping
1 cup vegetable oil
3 c sugar (I reduced this to 2 1/2 cups)
4 large eggs
1 15oz can of pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)
1 c water
3 c flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon *
1 tsp allspice *
1 tsp ground nutmeg *
1/2 tsp cloves *
1/2 tsp salt
*you can add up to 1/2 tsp more of each spice if you like a spicier cake
Topping:
1/2 c packed brown sugar
1/4 c butter, melted and cooled
1-2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 c toasted pecans (reserved from above)
small handful of pepitas (hulled pumpkin seeds), optional
- Preheat the oven to 350 and spread the pecans in an even layer on a cookie sheet; toast them in the oven for about 8 minutes.
- Grease (or line with parchment) a 9 x 13″ pan (or two 9×5 loaf pans) and set aside.
- In a large stainless steel bowl, whisk together the oil and the sugar until combined.
4. Add eggs, pumpkin and water and whisk again.
5. Whisk in flour, baking soda, spices and salt; stir to just combine.
6. Spread into prepared pan and set aside.
7. In a small bowl, mix together the topping ingredients.
8. Crumble the topping evenly over the batter, sprinkle with the pepitas if using and bake for about 50-60 minutes (or until the middle springs bake and feels solid).
9. Cut into squares and serve warm with some cold vanilla ice cream!
10. Another option would be to bake the batter in a twinkie pan (if you have one) and then fill it with cream cheese frosting – the directions and recipe for the frosting is on this carrot cake post
11. You can wrap the squares in plastic wrap and freeze them so you can pull out individual squares from the freezer whenever you want a treat!!
And, if you’re a baker, I would highly recommend this book.
Oh, and heeeeyyy….there are some incredible kolaches (Polish yeasted sweet buns) that I want to try in this book too…stay tuned!!
