New Blog Design and a Failed Thanksgiving Cake

I was so excited to, simultaneous with the unveiling of my new blog design, give you all a complete solution to the problem of what to make for Thanksgiving dessert that will please everyone but not take days to make.  As you can see from the photo above, I had a major fail in unmolding Dorie Greenspan's "all in one" cake, and could not throw another one together because of cross country travel for a friend's wedding.  While the cake, above, did not come out looking like a pretty bundt cake, it was delicious even in its uneven cake chunks form. My conclusion from this particular cake baking disaster is that for me, silicone bundt cake pans just don't work that well.  The cake is great idea - a pumpkin cake filled with apples, cranberries and pecans.  If it had come out nicely, I would have drizzled with a maple glaze, and voila, all your Thanksgiving baking headaches are gone.  As for the blog design, I hope you guys like it! I worked with Julie at Blogger Boutique and highly recommend her for you bloggers out there!  Happy Thanksgiving to all!

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Pumpkin Party: Pumpkin Pancakes

The pumpkin party continues, with breakfast the focus today.   On a cold rainy morning (perhaps while you hunker down before the power goes out during a hurricane?) these rich, lightly spiced pancakes do the trick.   When you add pumpkin to pancakes, there is no doubt that you must let go of any hope that your pancakes will be light and fluffy - pumpkin inevitably brings some denseness to the pancake party.  But while you lose some of that elusive pancake fluffiness, you gain a real depth of flavor.  After all, aren't plain ol pancakes not much more than a vehicle for maple syrup?  Not these things, while they are light on the sugar, the pumpkin flavor really comes through, as does the pumpkin pie spice. And about that pumpkin pie spice, I usually am against using "pumpkin pie spice" and like to carefully put together the right amounts of each of the key spices - nutmeg, allspice, cinnamon, etc... but with these pancakes and some other recipes I made for pumpkin week I took the shortcut and used a good quality pumpkin pie spice (penzeys), but when it comes time to make my thanksgiving pies, I will go back to the old fashioned way of a pinch of this and a pinch of that.
These pancakes I adapted from Nigella Lawson, who, strangely, didn't include any spices whatsoever in her recipe!  That just seemed strange to me, as the best part of any pumpkin sweet, in my opinion, are the spices.  So I added some.  For me, pancakes are a little too much effort (and carbs and calories) for everyday, but these are a great fall weekend treat!

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