Chocochip Pumpkin Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
6:16 AM
My kids are at a very impressionable age. Especially my three and half years old daughter. She loves watching cartoons and picks up things that catches her fancy, which means only two things. First, every now and then she comes running to us, points to a certain things and asks, 'will you please get me one of these?'. That's not hard as with time we have realised we can just smile and say Yes to make her happy. But the second part is little hard. Her demand to celebrate Western festivals the way her favourite cartoon characters do.
So for Christmas, she asks for cookies, milk for Santa and a big blingy tree. Which again was easy as following her big brother's demand we already had that at home. But I find myself totally clueless when she asks to celebrate Thanksgiving or Halloween. No one around me has ever done that and am just not sure what to do.
My idea of Halloween started and ended with the Halloween parade we experienced in Tokyo or the pumpkin curving the blogger buddies post picture of. But I never really gave it a thought to celebrate it that way. So I tried to tell her how we just celebrated Puja, Diwali and Bhai phonta but she was unconvinced.
With her trademark hand gestures she animatedly tried explaining , 'but mummum Halloween is a festival too and you can gather so many candies....' She even told me about all the essential items like curved pumpkin, creepy lights, costumes and everything that you need to make Halloween really creepy. I silenced her by giving her a cookie at that point of time but somehow she could not forget about it and has been asking me again and again in the last couple of weeks.
First I though I will curve a pumpkin and got a 8 KG beast home. But curving pumpkin is just not my job, It's so very difficult even to make a hole in it let alone curve it. After a few cuts and bruises on my home we finally settled on some Spooky handmade lamps and Halloween themed dessert. My son even got me his Geronimo Stilton book to have some ideas about Halloween icons ...
So while they are still working on the lamps (will share soon) here is my Halloween dessert. A chocochip Pumpkin Cake with cream cheese frosting. The figures on the top are made with Fondant but you can easily use Kaju Katli dough or store bought Marzipan.
Chocochip Pumpkin Cake with cream cheese frosting.
(makes one 8X8 square cake)
Ingredients:
Flour: 1 cup
Sugar: 1 cup
Eggs: 2
Baking powder: 1 tsp
Baking soda: 1/2 tsp
Cinnamon powder: 1 tsp
Ginger powder: 1/2 tsp
Nutmeg powder: 1/3 tsp
Cloves: 2 powdered with the sugar
Oil: 1/2 cup
Vanilla essence: 1 tsp
Salt: 1/3 tsp
Chocochip: 1/3 cup
Pumpkin puree: 1 cup OR 350 gms of ripe orange pumpkin piece
Frosting:
Cream cheese: 1/3 cup
Butter: 3 tbsp
Icing sugar: 1/3 cup
Vanilla essence: 1/2 tsp
Method:
To make the pumpkin puree
Take the pumpkin piece (skin on) and clean it. Place in a microwave safe bowl and cover with cling film. make a cut in the center of the wrap and micro for 10 minutes on high. Check. a fork should easily go through it. if not then micro for another 2-5 minutes. Once it cools down, scoop out all the flesh and make a paste out of it in your mixer. You should have lovely pumpkin puree.
You can make and save it in the fridge for a week or so.
Alternatively you can bake the pumpkin on a greased/lined tray on 180C for 20 minutes or till tender and process as above.
To make the cake
Line and grease a 8X8 pan.
Pre heat oven at 180C.
In a big bowl take the oil, powdered sugar, spices, egg, vanilla essence and the pumpkin puree. Sieve the baking powder, baking soda and flour with salt in another pan. Now mix these two till homogenous.
Mix in the chocochips and pour in the pan. Bake for 35-40 minutes or a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Invert on a wire rack and let it cool down.
In the meantime make the frosting by just whipping all the ingredients together.
Once the cake is cold evenly spread the frosting on top and cut neat squares.
Decorate in any ways you want.
The soil is made of Oreo crumb.
The figures are made of Fondant.
The red colour is beet juice.
To store use an airtight container.
Posts
0 comments