Pumpkin-Chocolate Layer Cake

I don’t go by a lot of rules, but there is one that I will follow to my grave; Peanut butter makes everything better. Put it on anything, bananas, toast, noodles, a flip flop – ANYTHING, and it magically becomes just oh so much better. Which is why I am completely baffled that the first recipe I am posting on my blog, does not, in fact, include any peanut butter. Not even an ounce (which I will be making up for later, I assure you). If you talked to my family they would agree that I throw peanut butter into almost everything I make. But this Friday is my Cousin Nick’s birthday, and pumpkin pie being his favorite, I had no choice but to go with a pumpkin cake. Although I may try to concoct some sort of pumpkin-peanut butter mash up in the future, I figured my favorite cousins birthday cake wouldn’t be the best place to start.

 SO onto this lovely cake. I’m not one to make regular old cakes, I like to get creative and put in little surprises. So instead of baking a normal pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting, the bottom layer in this cake is chocolate and the top is pumpkin. Sandwiched between these two is a marbled cake. The big kicker is the FABULOUS caramel recipe I found to fill the cake. It is seriously – seriously- so good. And I even made it without a candy thermometer! (Which I would not recommend, I really need to invest in one of those things) Finally, to frost the cake I used a cinnamon cream cheese frosting which really just tied in all of the wonderful flavors. Here’s a few tips I found might be helpful while making the cake:

¬ While spreading the batter for the marbled cake, make sure you do it evenly because too much of either batter in one area could leave you with uncooked or over-cooked cake

¬ If you need to cut any edges off of your cake, do this before you fill and stack them because the caramel will make this job much messier and more difficult than it needs to be (I found this out the hard way)

¬ The caramel sets up pretty fast so have your cake layers ready to go when you make it

Pumpkin-Chocolate Layer Cake

Pumpkin Cake Recipe

·         1 ½ cups all-purpose flour

·         1 teaspoon baking powder

·         ½ teaspoon baking soda

·         1 ½ teaspoons pumpkin pie spice

·         ½ teaspoon salt

·         ½ cup unsalted butter, room temperature

·         ½ cup granulated sugar

·         ½ cup golden brown sugar, packed

·         2 large eggs, room temperature

·         ½ of a 15 oz. can of pumpkin puree

Instructions

1.       Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit

2.       Grease and line 3 8-inch round pans and line with parchment paper.

3.       In a bowl sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, pumpkin pie spice, and salt.

4.       Beat the butter, granulated, and brown sugar together with an electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy (about 2-3 minutes)

5.       Beat in the eggs one at a time on medium speed, scraping down the sides as you go.

6.       Beat in vanilla until combined.

7.       With the mixer on low, add in the pumpkin puree and flour mixture alternatively in 3 additions, starting and ending with flour mixture.

8.       Add one cup of batter to one cake pan, and the rest of the batter to another. Set aside.

Chocolate Cake Recipe

·         1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour

·         1 cup granulated sugar

·         ½ teaspoon baking soda

·         ¼ teaspoon salt

·         ½ cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder

·         2 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped

·         1 cup hot black coffee

·         2/3 cup mayonnaise

·         1 large egg

·         2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Instructions

1.       In a bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, baking soda and salt.

2.       In another bowl add the cocoa and chocolate.

3.       Pour the hot coffee over the cocoa mixture, whisking until smooth.

4.       Whisk in mayonnaise, egg, and vanilla.

5.       Stir mayonnaise mixture into flour mixture until combined.

6.       Take one cup of batter and dollop on top of the one cup of pumpkin batter (the pan with less batter)

7.       Run a small knife through this to make swirls

8.       Pour the rest of the chocolate batter in to the last cake pan

9.       Place all three cakes into the oven and bake until a tooth pick comes out with only a few moist crumbs, about 25-30 minutes for each.

Salted Caramel Recipe

·         1 cup sugar

·         ¼ cup water

·         1 teaspoon lemon juice

·         ½ cup heavy cream

·         1 tablespoon unsalted butter

·         ½ teaspoon vanilla

·         Generous pinch of sea salt

Instructions

1.       In a saucepan over medium-high heat, stir the sugar, water, and lemon juice until combined.

2.       Stop stirring and let the mixture bubble for about 8 minutes until it reaches an amber color.

3.       Remove the sauce pan from heat and add in the heavy cream and butter, (careful; it WILL aggressively steam and bubble at you, but don’t worry this is okay)

4.       Clip a candy thermometer onto the saucepan and return the mixture to medium-high heat until it reaches 248 degrees Fahrenheit.

5.       Transfer the caramel to a heat proof bowl and stir in vanilla and salt. As it reaches room temperature the caramel will thicken

Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting Recipe

·         12 oz. Cream cheese, softened

·         ¾ cup butter, softened

·         1 ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

·         ½ teaspoon vanilla

·         3 ½ - 5 cups powdered sugar

Instructions

1.       In an electric mixture, whip together the cream cheese and butter until light and fluffy.

2.       Add in cinnamon, vanilla, and half of powdered sugar and mix on low speed until combined

3.       Add in the rest of the powdered sugar until desired consistency.

4.       If frosting is runny, place in the refrigerator to thicken before frosting cake.

Assembly

1.       Place the chocolate cake layer on your cake stand/plate after leveling.

2.       Spread half of the caramel on chocolate layer.

3.       After caramel has hardened a bit, spread a layer of cream cheese frosting on top.

4.       Place marbled cake layer on next, and spread the rest of the caramel on top of this.

5.       Spread a layer of cream cheese frosting on the marbled cake.

6.       Lastly place the pumpkin cake layer on top.

7.       Spread a crumb coat of the cream cheese frosting on the cake and place in the refrigerator for 15-30 minutes.

8.       Use the rest of the cinnamon cream cheese frosting to frost the cake to your liking J

*Recipes adapted from sweetapolita.com, hungryrabbitnyc.com, and cakemerchant.com*