Happy National Bundt Day! (Featuring Pumpkin-Oatmeal Bundt)

Today is National Bundt Day.  If you didn't read my post from earlier this week, go back and read it to discover my history with this day. (You don't have to read it really, there's no history - Bundt cake is just a really good idea, and I wanted cake on Bundt Day 2010.  But I've celebrated each Bundt Day since then.  Because I like cake, y'all.)

Last week, my friend Ruhama (who started me on this Bundt Day broo-ha-ha) put a reminder on Facebook that Bundt Day was coming up.  A good idea on her part, really, because Bundt Day doesn't get all the fanfare and promotions of bigger holidays like Halloween or Christmas.  It kind of gets lost in the cracks, and that's just tragic because it's a holiday about cake.  So I started thinking about what kind of Bundt I'd make this year.  Seriously - I didn't procrastinate this year and glob a bunch of things together.  I actually planned ahead and looked through my recipe books.

I settled on a recipe from a cookbook my mom gave me many years ago, Have Breakfast with Us II, a collection of recipes from bed & breakfast owners across Wisconsin.  The recipes are all breakfast recipes, of course, but of the ones that I've tried, they've all been good.  And you've gotta think, these are the recipes for food they serve their guests - it must be good.  So although I've never made this particular recipe before, I figured it'd be pretty good.

The original recipe is called Morning Pumpkin Coffeecake and it is meant to be a Bundt cake.  I'm sure it's a lovely cake to serve with brunch at a Victorian B&B, but I can't get my stuff together early enough in the morning to make a breakfast Bundt.  So this will be dessert tonight.  Cake is cake, after all.  (I think this is Clue #1 why I wouldn't be a good B&B proprietor - "What?  You want me to cook you breakfast?  Before I've had my coffee.  Pfft.  Whatever.  Even my kids know they are on their own for breakfast.  It's every mortal for themselves around here, at least until I've got 2 cups of coffee on board."  I would maybe make a good Supper & Bed proprietor, though.  I'm usually together by then.)

So besides changing the name of the cake, I also modified the ingredients a bit to cut sugar and fat.  The original called for 1 and 1/2 sticks of butter or margarine.  I cut the butter in half and subbed Greek yogurt for part of it.  The original also called for 1.5 cups of brown sugar.  I cut the brown sugar in half and subbed in Splenda.  The original called for 6 egg whites and I just used 3 whole eggs (I don't have a problem with whole eggs, nutritionally speaking.  I do have a problem, however, with wasting 6 perfectly good yolks.)  I also didn't have the amount of raisins called for by the original recipe, so I used some dried cranberries, and I also added some chopped walnuts and increased spices.

Okay, let's get ready to rock Bundt Day 2012.

First step, assemble your ingredients:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1.25 cups old-fashioned oats
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon allspice
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 6 tablespoons butter (or 3/4 of a stick)
• 1/3 cup + 1 tablespoon plain Greek yogurt
• 3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
• 3/4 cup Splenda
• 1 can 100% 
• pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)
• 3 eggs
• 1/4 cup raisins
• 1/4 cup cranberries
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat your oven to 350 and spray your Bundt pan with cooking spray.  Mix dry ingredients (flour, oats, baking powder, salt and spices) in a bowl.  In bowl of stand mixer, combine softened butter, Greek yogurt, brown sugar, and Splenda.  

Beat until creamy and light.  Mix in pumpkin and eggs, combine thoroughly.  Gradually add flour mixture by spoonfuls until all of the flour mixture is evenly combined with wet ingredients.  Add in raisins, cranberries, and walnuts, combine. 

Pour cake batter into prepared Bundt.  Bake 60-70 minutes, until toothpick inserted into cake comes out clean.  Cool for 10 minutes, then unmold from Bundt pan.  Cake can then be frosted, glazed or dusted with powdered sugar. (I glazed mine with a small amount of a cinnamon-powdered sugar glaze.)

Nutrition: Depending on how big you cut your slices, this cake is fairly decent (calorie-wise) in its unfrosted state: 218 calories for 1/12 of the cake, or 262 for 1/10.  Nutritionally speaking, it's okay.  For 1/12 of the cake, you'll get 10 grams of fat.  Which isn't great, but it's less fat than what you'd get in a traditional boxed cake.  Sugars are only 6.3 grams, so that's not too bad, and total carbs are 29g.  

Verdict: I'll post an update in this spot later tonight, after we've had this cake for dessert.  :)  Check back later.

Updated (10-16-12): Sorry about not posting an update regarding the cake last night.  I've got kids, you know?  Anyhow...it's a good cake recipe.  The flavor is very good, and it's decently moist.  I thought it would have benefited more from cream cheese frosting (as opposed to the glaze), but my husband said it was fine the way it is.  It would definitely be a good choice for a breakfast or brunch spread - I think it was very "muffin-like" and could probably be adapted into outstanding muffins quite easily.  The kids gave it mixed reviews - one kid opted to skip it completely as he's not a huge fan of pumpkin to begin with (and evidently, he's also not a big fan of frosting-less cake).  Middle One ate all of hers and said it was good.  Little One ate parts of hers, which is saying something because when we have cake, she usually eats the frosting and leaves the cake behind.

Curried Pumpkin Soup

For the last two years, I've heard about a supposed "pumpkin shortage."  So when I see pumpkin for cheap at the grocery store, I snatch it up to add to my stockpile.  $1 a can?  Don't mind if I do.

The only problem is, I now have a ton of pumpkin and my family (okay, my kids) tends to get tired of me doing all the baking in pumpkin flavors.  ("Yay! Mom made cookies!  Oh.  They're...pumpkin.  Nevermind.  Got any chocolate?")  I needed to find another way to use some of it.

My other inspiration for this recipe comes from me being cold and wanting soup for lunch today.  We typically have soup or chili or stew on the menu about once a week around here during the cold months.  I love it when we have homemade leftover soup for lunch.  Alas...I have not gone grocery shopping this week and our only leftovers to be had were the slices of fundraiser frozen pizza.  Nummay.  (Actually, not so much.  Fundraiser pizza is pretty gross and not worth the price or calories.  The things we do for our kids and their school's PTO.)

I was a tad nervous about trying a savory pumpkin recipe since I'm used to sweet pumpkin recipes.  I turned to my good friend Internet and looked up a few different recipes that sounded good.  I liked parts of some recipes, and ingredients in others.  Some batches made way too much soup and others were too high in calories.  So I took what I liked from the recipes and cobbled together my own:

Curried Pumpkin Soup

You will need: 

Not pictured?  The ginger or garlic, because I took the picture before I got them out of the fridge.  Also missing? Water.  But you know what that looks like.

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 medium onion (white or yellow), chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced or chopped
• 1 (14.5 oz.) can of chicken broth (can substitute veggie broth if you want a vegetarian soup)
• 1 (15 oz.) can of canned pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)
• 1 cup water
• 1 tsp minced ginger (if you don't keep ginger on hand - I don't - get thee a jar of pre-minced ginger to keep in the fridge.  It's way better than ground ginger from the spice aisle but it's super convenient.)
• 1.5 tsp curry powder
• 1/4 tsp cumin
• a pinch of coriander (about 1/8 tsp, actually.  I just don't have a 1/8 teaspoon and eyeballed half of my 1/4 teaspoon.)
• a pinch of cayenne (same as the coriander - about 1/8 tsp)
• salt and pepper to taste
• 2 tbsp half and half
• parsley (fresh or dried) for garnish

Heat your olive oil in a big saucepan over medium heat.  Add your chopped onions and garlic.  Saute until onions are tender and translucent.  Add the chicken broth, water, pumpkin, ginger, curry powder, cumin, coriander, cayenne pepper, salt and pepper.  Stir to combine well.  

Heat until soup comes to a low simmer.  You might want to taste it at this point and adjust spices accordingly, according to your preferences.  (If you don't like hot-spicy, I'd recommend not adding the full amount of cayenne in the beginning and adjust at this point.  At the amounts listed in the recipe, I don't think it's too spicy-hot, it's just right, but then again, I like spicy food.)  Once you've adjusted your spices and reached your low simmer, it's time to transfer the whole soup to a blender or food processor.  Behold, The Ninja:

Proof that I'm not a good blogger - a splotch of soup on my counter top.  Oh heavens!

I bought The Ninja Master Prep Pro a few weeks ago after that unfortunate hummus incident at the beginning of the month.  We love this thing.  The kids think it's awesome when I use it to make shaved ice for snow cones.  My husband uses it a couple of times a week for smoothies for breakfast.  I've used it for hummus twice and haven't killed it.  Not even close.  It's the best blender we've ever had.  I think it's less of a blender and more of a blender/food processor hybrid, but whatever.  It's awesome.  Anyhow...

Blend your soup until smooth.  There will probably be a few visible flecks of garlic or onion, but you just want an overall nice, even consistency.  (If pressed for time or clean blender - I've been there, believe me - you could skip this step altogether.  You'll just have onion chunks to contend with.) Pour your soup back into the original pan.  Add your half-and-half and stir to combine.

I always have half-and-half on hand because I like it in my coffee.  If you don't have half-and-half, you could use whole milk.  Coconut milk would be good too if you want the soup to be vegan or you avoid dairy.  Basically you want to add a touch of creaminess to the soup - it compliments the pumpkin and the spices nicely.  Heat the soup through if the milk-product-of-choice has cooled it significantly.  Ladle into bowls, garnish with parsley:

This recipe makes about 5.5 cups of soup.  I plugged the recipe into Livestrong to figure out calories and such - a 1 and 3/8 cup serving (about 1/4 of the recipe) clocks in at 102 calories.  I had about 1.5 cups in that bowl, which was 111 calories.  It's a little bit higher in fat than I would like (5 grams per serving), which would be a good reason to substitute a lower-fat option for the half-and-half if you're looking to reduce your fat intake.  I worked with what I had on hand, though.  Obviously, 100 calories of soup isn't going to keep you full for very long (though I did get filled up on this one bowl of soup, but I also tend to eat small lunches), so if you're making this for lunch, you might want to add in a small sandwich or salad.  As a starter course, this soup would be great.  

Overall - a warm, spicy soup perfect for fall.  I'll be making it again.

Pumpkin-Carrot Cookies

If you've spent any time on Pinterest, chances are you've seen this pin before:

The premise: mix a can of pumpkin and a box of cake mix and voila - easy pumpkin cake or muffins that are Weight Watcher friendly because they don't use extra oil or eggs so it keeps the calorie and fat count down.  I've made this recipe a number of times because it's just so easy and the results are satisfying, but friendly to those of us who are eating healthy.  My personal favorite is to mix the pumpkin with spice cake mix, but I've also done it with yellow cake mix.  I've made it into a cake with an apple cider glaze, I've made it into muffins, and I've made it into cookies.  

Yesterday at the grocery store, both pumpkin and carrot cake mix were on sale for cheap, so I knew I'd be making something along the pumpkin+cake mix lines.  I was also slightly hungry for something called "health food cake."  It's not really health food, but rather a concoction very similar to carrot cake but it has applesauce, raisins and nuts in it.  And then it's slathered in cream cheese frosting.  But I'm guessing that the fine ladies who started crafting these cakes for pot-lucks were like "Applesauce?  Healthy.  Raisins?  Healthy?  Nuts?  Healthy."  And it's super tasty, but all the non-healthy in the recipe sort of cancels out the healthy, you know?  

So a sale at the grocery store and a hankering for a non-healthy health food cake were the inspiration behind today's recipe:

You will need: 

* One box of carrot cake mix

* One can of canned pumpkin

* 1/2 cup raisins

* 1/2 cup walnuts (though judging from my picture, it looks like I'm adding a 1/2 cup of English.  I started quoting the movie "Witness" in my head when I noticed that. You be careful out among them English.)

(Also, you'll notice I'm not above buying generic ingredients, much to my tween's chagrin. Ugh.  Why can't you ever buy the name brand granola bars, pop-tarts, and canned pumpkin?  Wait.  Maybe he doesn't complain about the generic pumpkin.  *thinking*  Nope, he just complains because it's pumpkin.)

Mix carrot cake mix and pumpkin in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with whisk attachment.  Beat on medium speed for about 3 minutes until everything is well combined, scraping down sides and bottom of the bowl halfway through.  

Whee!

Fold in the nuts and raisins by hand.  Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto cookie sheet lined with parchment (or sprayed with cooking spray - that's fine too).  Bake at 350 for about 15 minutes or until cookies are set and just browning around the edges.  Allow to cool on cookie sheet for a few minutes, then remove to wire rack.

You'll end up with moist, cake-like cookies that are about 175 calories for 2 cookies.  I made 32 large-ish cookies though (very generous teaspoonfuls).  You could easily make these cookies smaller to increase your yield and drop the per-cookie calorie count.  You could also use this same mix to make muffins (divide into papered muffin tins) or a snack cake (spread into 9x13 pan coated with cooking spray).  Adjust cooking times accordingly.

The verdict: They're not terrible by any means.  They're satisfying.  They satisfy the cake craving I've had going on for the last few days.  But they'd really benefit from a dollop of cream cheese frosting on top, darnit.

Edited to add: I'd forgotten that these are the type of cookies/baked good that taste even better the second day.  Today I'm not even missing the fact that they don't have cream cheese frosting.

Pumpkin Smoothie (Concrete Mixer Substitute)

One of my favorite, favorite things about fall is all the pumpkin flavored stuff.  Pumpkin Spice Latte at Starbucks, pumpkin donuts, pumpkin bread, pumpkin pie...all good.  And one of my favorite pumpkin flavored things is the Pumpkin Pecan Concrete Mixers that Culver's features on their menu this time of year.  If you're not lucky enough to have a Culver's restaurant near you, a concrete mixer is basically the frozen custard equivalent of a Dairy Queen blizzard: lots and lots of frozen custard blended with flavorings, candy, cookies, etc.  Each fall they trot out the Pumpkin Pecan concrete mixer, and I will usually treat myself to one or two before they disappear around Christmas time. (Which is about the time they trot out the Peppermint Stick mixers.  Oy.)

However, over the past year, I've lost 75 pounds by taking up running and cutting down on calories (I'll write more about this in another blog post).  I knew that this year, a Pumpkin Pecan concrete mixer was going to be a no-no.  A simple look-up of Culver's nutritional information confirms this: the smallest size pumpkin pecan mixer (a "mini") is 603 calories and 43 grams of fat.  Yikes.

So the other day I decided to create a substitute.  Now, if you're expecting a super-rich, creamy dessert, you might come away from this disappointed.  But for me, this substitute satisfies my craving for a pumpkin pecan mixer with all the taste, but many fewer calories and almost no fat.  This recipe clocks in at 223 calories, even less if you split it as Little One and I did.

It's based on the Pumpkin Smoothie recipe listed on Skinnytaste and also utilizes her recipe for pumpkin butter (which I totally recommend that you try). I just altered her recipe a bit to suit my tastes and nutritional needs.

You will need:

4 oz. frozen pumpkin butter*
1/4 cup 0% fat, plain Greek yogurt
1/2 cup skim milk

*(I used this recipe and froze my pumpkin butter into 4 oz. portions to use in various recipes.)

Put everything in a blender. If your pumpkin butter doesn't want to leave the container you froze it in, run the closed container under some warm water to soften it just a touch. If it still won't slide out, you can use a spoon to scoop it out.

Blend till smooth.  It'll have the consistency of an Wendy's Frosty when done.

Using the frozen pumpkin butter is key - it eliminates having to add ice, which keeps the pumpkin taste more concentrated, less watered down.  You could also easily add extras if you'd like (extra sweetener, chia seeds, some chocolate chips, a banana) but keep in mind extras will alter the end result AND the nutritional info and calorie count.

Voila - the finished product:

Smooth, creamy, and pumpkin-y, and at a fraction of the fat and calories of a frozen custard concoction.