Pumpkin Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Pumpkin Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Anyone who knows me well knows I love all things pumpkin!  This is one of my favorite recipes, and I can hardly wait to make it each Fall to celebrate the holidays.  It's so easy, and so yummy, you'll want this recipe for own! 

1 cup vegetable oil
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
2 cups canned pumpkin
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

Spray 9x13 cake pan with non-stick spray.  Mix oil, sugar, eggs and pumpkin until smooth.  Sift dry ingredients and mix together with cake batter.  Spread evening into pan. Pre-heat oven to 350F; bake cake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean from the center of the cake.  Cool completely before frosting.    

Frosting:

6 tablespoons for soft butter
4 ounces soft cream cheese
2 cups of powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

Cream butter and cream cheese together, add vanilla.  Slowly mix in powdered sugar, until smooth.  May add a little milk if too thick.

Sopapilla Cheesecake

Sopapilla Cheesecake
This isn't a new recipe, but has certainly become a favorite over the past year. I get asked to make this over and over, and really, why not?! This dessert is equal parts sublime cinnamon sugar and honey with flaky crust, with a rich sweet cheesecake filling. Easy to make, delicious to eat, what's not love?!   *recipe calls for making this in a 9x13 pan.  I’ve shown it here in a 10 inch stoneware dish.

Ingredients

• 3 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
• 1 (8 ounce) mascarpone cheese, softened *see note below
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 1 teaspoon of cinnamon
• 1 large egg
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 (8 ounce) cans crescent roll dough
• 1/2 cup melted butter
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 cup of honey

Directions
Preheat an oven to 350 degrees F

Beat the cheeses with 1 1/2 cups of sugar, 1 tsp. cinnamon, egg and the vanilla extract in a bowl until smooth. Unroll the cans of crescent roll dough, and use a rolling pin to shape each piece into 9x13 inch rectangles. Press one piece into the bottom of a 9x13 inch baking dish. Evenly spread the cream cheese mixture into the baking dish, then cover with the remaining piece of crescent dough.
Drizzle the melted butter evenly over the top of the cheesecake. Stir the remaining 1/2 cup of sugar together with the cinnamon in a small bowl, and sprinkle over the cheesecake.

Bake in the preheated oven until the crescent dough has puffed and turned golden brown, about 45 minutes. Drizzle warm cheesecake with honey.  Cool completely in the pan before cutting into 12 squares.

*note on mascarpone cheese.  Marscapone can be expensive and/or hard to find in some areas.  It's an italian cream cheese that is sweeter and richer than regular cream cheese and it makes a notable difference in recipes that call for it's use.  However, you can absolutely substitute 8 oz of regular cream cheese for the marscapone if you can't find it, or it's too expensive for your budget.