Is It A Cake or a Pumpkin? It's Both!

Friends came for tea yesterday

It's November

It's Fall

Tea in the dining room

With the Spode Camilla blue and white transfer ware

And a crochet cloth on the table

With lace and blue and white

The old dough bowl in the center of the table

filled with pumpkins and gourds and bittersweet and acorn squash

The tea treat is a pumpkin cream cheese bundt cake

It echoes the pumpkins in the centerpiece

Candy corn rims the plate

A two layer bundt cake with a cream cheese filling!

Perfect for afternoon tea with a cup of Harney's Hot Cinnamon Tea

PUMPKIN CREAM CHEESE BUNDT CAKE

This recipe is for ONE bundt cake

Cake:
1 box yellow cake mix, sifted
1/2 t. baking soda
2 eggs
1 3/4 cup pumpkin
1/2 t. ginger
1 t. vanilla
1 t. cinnamon
1/4 t. ground cloves
1 cup sugar

For the Cream Cheese Filling:

8 oz. cream cheese softened
1/2 c. sugar
1 egg
1/4 t. cinnamon
1/4 t. vanilla

Icing:

3 1/2 c. powdered sugar
5 to 6 tablespoons milk
red and yellow food color
Optional:   real pumpkin stem

Preheat oven to 350.    Grease a round 10 cup bundt pan and set aside. 

In a large bowl, combine cake mix, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and sugar and whisk to mix well.    Mix in eggs, pumpkin, and vanilla.    In another bowl, beat cream cheese, sugar, and egg until creamy.     Mix in cinnamon and vanilla.

Pour half of cake batter into prepared bundt pan.    Next, spread on cream cheese mixture.    Top with remaining cake batter.     Bake 50 to 60 minutes or until inserted knife comes out mostly clean.

**To make full pumpkin, you wil need to make the above cake twice.   Do not double the recipe and split between two cake pans.   Make the cake two times.     When they’re down, flip one cake upside down, set second cake on top.

Make icing by mixing together powdered sugar and milk in a microwave safe bowl.    Stir in 1/2 teaspoon yellow food coloring.   Add red food coloring 2 to 3 drops at a time until desired shade of orange is reached.     Warm icing in microwave (20 to 30 seconds) until pourable consistency is reached.     Pour icing over cake.     Allow to cool and set.    Top with optional pumpkin stem.    Slice and serve at room temperature.

NOTES:   I used my 5 cup bundt pans so I made the receipt only ONCE and did split it between the two pans.    My cake was definitely smaller (and served less) than if you use a regular bundt pan.      Also, it is very important that you make the icing thick and microwave.    A thinner icing that is pourable is more of a glaze than an icing.   And you want a nice thick coat of orange icing on your pumpkin!

Also, you could just make one and frost so it looks like a half pumpkin rather than a whole one.     It’s just a good pumpkin cake but the two bundt presentation with real pumpkin stem is just so clever!

I'm joining Kathleen at CuisineKathleen for her Bundt Cake challenge

Susan at Between Naps On the Porch for Tablescape Thursday

Michael at Rattlebridge Farm for Foodie Friday

Sandi at Rose Chintz Cottage for Tea Time Tuesday

Bernideen for Friends Sharing Tea