halloween - A Pound of Butter

The best pumpkin cake you’ll ever try! With warm spices and an insanely moist and soft texture, you’ll want a slice of this fall cake every day of the year! This pumpkin cake, packed with pure pumpkin flavour, is so easy to make, you can have it out of the oven in just over an hour! Keep reading to find out how!

The Story Behind the Cake:

Last year, I knew I wanted to make a pumpkin cake for Halloween. I wanted it to have the perfect texture, taste, and overall flavour to fully embody the fall and Halloween spirit. So, since I had successfully developed the absolute BEST apple cake recipe (Cinnamon Apple Cider Loaf Cake), I was hoping I could convert it to a pumpkin cake by subbing out the apple reduction for pumpkin puree.

Unfortunately, I was wrong. The cake turned out a bit too dense for my liking, so I knew I had to try something different.

A Treasure was Found:

Luckily for me though, I went searching through my family’s recipe box and found this recipe. I don’t know who we got it from, but it must have been some family friend who wanted us to try it. And so I did try it.

For Halloween this year, I followed the recipe-box-recipe to make the cake layers of my Halloween Cake (check out the Gallery to see the finished cake!). Before it was even in the oven, I fell in love with the recipe. Why? Because it is seriously so easy to make!! It’s a 2 bowl recipe, where you just mix ingredients together, then mix those bowls together. Don’t tell any other baking bloggers this, but you could probably skip the step with whisking the dry ingredients first and make it a one bowl recipe instead if you want it even easier (or are like me and hate washing extra dishes!).

Once the cake came out of the oven though, I was even more in love. The second I cut into it to level off the domes, I knew it was going to be the softest cake ever. And I was right.

I bet you thought the texture couldn’t get any better. But it does; on top of the softness, you get something even more important when it comes to cake texture: the moistness. My apologies for using that word, but this cake is seriously so moist!!! It is quite literally melt-in-your-mouth, can-hear-the-moisture-if-you-press-on-it moist. AKA: the. Best. Texture. Ever.

After finding that amazing recipe, the only thing I did was slightly tweak some flavours to get it absolutely perfect, and there you have it folks: the BEST Pumpkin Cake!

How to Make the Best Pumpkin Cake:

As I said above, this recipe is super simple, so let’s take a deeper look at exactly how simple.

Dry Ingredients:

You start by whisking together your dry ingredients: the flour, baking powder and baking soda (your leavening agents to make it tall and fluffy), and all of your spices. This includes salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and a bit of ginger, but you could also add in some allspice, pumpkin spice (which is essentially just the above spices already mixed together), or any other spice that you would want it your pumpkin cake!

Wet Ingredients:

Then, you mix the wet ingredients in the bowl of an electric mixer. I prefer using my Kitchenaid Stand Mixer since it’s really easy and efficient, but you could also use a hand mixer if you prefer. The wet ingredients include the sugar, pumpkin puree, oil, eggs, and vanilla extract.

After you mix these together for a few minutes, it should look like a thinner consistency batter. This is the only point in the process where you can beat the batter for longer since as you mix, air gets incorporated.

When flour mixes with liquids, gluten starts to form and this process is accelerated with the addition of air. So once you add your flour, you don’t want to mix for too long since the longer you mix, the more air that gets incorporated and the more gluten that’s developed, which results in a denser cake. However, before adding in the flour, no harm is done by mixing forever, so feel free to beat for those few extra minutes to get it even fluffier!

Mixing & Baking:

Finally, as you probably anticipated, you then add in the dry ingredients. Mix these together until just combined as explained above.

Pour the batter into your cake pans (if you are not planning on using the 6″ round 3″ tall pans that I used, see the recipe notes for suggestions on other pan sizes) and bake at 350 for almost an hour. Then, once the cakes are done, the toothpick has only a few moist crumbs, and your house smells like pumpkin spice heaven, take them out of the oven and let them cool.

Pairing the Best Pumpkin Cake:

Since pumpkin spice lattes are a fall staple and such an iconic flavour pairing, I frosted this Pumpkin Cake with an Espresso Spice Buttercream. The recipe for that frosting is here: http://Espresso Spice Frosting and it goes so perfectly with the Pumpkin Cake. It brings out all of the right sweet and spicy flavours and is so reminiscent of a coffee run to Starbucks.

However, if pumpkin spice lattes are not your thing, you could pair this cake with a vanilla buttercream, cream cheese frosting, or practically anything else you want! I’m not a huge fan of chocolate and pumpkin together, but some people are, so if that’s your thing go ahead and frost it with chocolate buttercream! Other great frosting flavours you could play around with are brown sugar, caramel, maple and more!

If you give this recipe a try, don’t forget to leave a review below. Enjoy!

The Best Pumpkin Cake

Moist, soft, and full of fall spices and pumpkin flavour, this Pumpkin Cake is not only super delicious, but super easy to make as well!

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Prep Time 15

Cook Time 1

Total Time 1 15

Course Dessert

Servings 12 people

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp ginger
1 3/4 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 cup canola or vegetable oil (or any other neutral oil)
2 cups pumpkin puree (16 oz., canned or fresh) See notes*
1 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease and flour 2 6" round cake pans (3" tall). See notes*
In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and all spices.
In a large bowl using an electric mixer, beat the sugar, eggs, oil, vanilla, and pumpkin for about a minute until light and fluffy. It should resemble something close to a batter at this point.
Add your dry ingredients to your wet ingredients and beat until combined.
Divide your batter evenly into your 2 pans, and bake for 55-60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean with only a few moist crumbs.
Allow to cool, frost, and enjoy! See notes*

Notes

If using canned pumpkin, make sure that it is not Pumpkin Pie Filling. It needs to be pure pumpkin.

This recipe uses 6″ round pans that are 3″ tall. If your 6″ pans are only 2″ tall, you will most likely need to use 3 pans, and bake for less time, starting with 40 minutes and adding more time as needed. This recipe can also be made in 2 8″ round pans (2″ tall), but again, start with less time (40 minutes) and add more time as needed.

This amazing pumpkin cake is even more delicious when paired with my Espresso Spice Buttercream! Exactly like a Pumpkin Spice Latte but in cake form (which makes it even better!). If PSL’s are not your jam, my American Buttercream or Cream Cheese Frosting also go perfectly with this yummy cake, and you can even add a few tsps of cinnamon to those frostings to really bring out the sweet fall flavours!

Keyword cake, fall desserts, layer cake, pumpkin

These Cheesecake Bites put all of your leftover Halloween candy to good use in a creamy, delicious, chocolaty way! Perfect for both kids and adults alike; combining the joys of your favourite Halloween candies and the elegance of a fluffy cheesecake, all in one bite-sized package! Keep reading to find out how you can make these fun treats, all from the comfort of your own home.

I created this recipe in the winter of 2019. Since it was that long ago, I really don’t know what made me think of making this recipe, except for the fact that we still had a lot of Halloween candy leftover. One specific thing I remember was that we even had some chocolate fudge still sitting in the fridge from the summer!

But I have absolutely no clue why I decided to turn all of those leftovers into cheesecake – cheesecake bites of all things! I could’ve added it into cookies, brownies, eaten it straight… and yet I chose cheesecake! I don’t even know if the goal was to use up bricks of cream cheese that were about to expire! Nonetheless, it’s safe to say that I don’t regret the decision in the least, since it turned into this.

Rich and creamy cheesecake. The sweet taste of candy bars. Buttery graham cracker crust. The crack of the chocolate shell when you bite into it. Are you drooling yet? I know I am.

Now let’s take a look into each of the parts that make this a drool-worthy recipe.

Graham Cracker Crust:

The first thing we do is make a crust. It’s a pretty standard graham cracker crust, made from melted butter and crushed graham crackers.

A fun thing to do with this crust is change up the flavour! I for one am a huge chocolate lover, so I love using chocolate graham cracker crumbs (or Oreo crumbs, if you will) instead of just plain old regular graham crackers!

With this recipe, I pre-bake the crust (also known as blind baking for all you pie bakers out there). This really lets it set up nicely before adding in the cheesecake batter. It only takes about 10 minutes, time that you’ll be using to make your cheesecake batter anyway, so it shouldn’t be that influential if you’re pressed for time.

Cheesecake Filling:

Now, you may know that my Mom is known for her cheesecake. But, up until this year, she hadn’t written out her perfect recipe, and just went from memory every time. So, when it came to making these cheesecake bites, I based the filling off of a different recipe that my brain unfortunately refuses to remember, instead of using my mom’s recipe.

In fact, this entire recipe was actually born from combining that recipe with a great recipe from Handle The Heat: https://handletheheat.com/chocolate-covered-cheesecake-bite/.

The cheesecake starts with the oh-so-secret ingredient: cream cheese. Make sure you use the brick-kind and not the tub-kind! Then we add in our sugar, kind of like how you would cream in your sugar in a standard cookie or cake recipe. After that, you whip in the heavy cream (which is key to the creaminess and fluffiness of the cheesecake) and the vanilla extract (is there any recipe that doesn’t use vanilla extract?).

Finally, and here’s the important part, you mix in the eggs. You need to be really careful not to overmix it once you add in the eggs. My mom stressed this a lot when teaching me her cheesecake secrets. You can mix the batter all you want before adding in the eggs (you could do it for hours on end for all I care), but once those eggs are added, only mix until they’re JUST incorporated. If there’s still small traces of egg in the batter, ditch the electric mixer and instead give it a few folds with a spatula to ensure you don’t overmix.

Lastly, fold in your chopped candy bars, which can be anything and everything you have lying around your pantry.

Assembling The Bites:

Now that your batter’s prepared, pour it into your pan and bake it.

Normally, for a cheesecake, you’d have all of these cautionary measures like water baths and slow temperature drops. However, since we’re cutting this cheesecake anyway, it’s fine to let it crack like your neck after a long day.

Once your cheesecake is ready, you then let it chill for what feels like, and is quite literally, hours. It needs to be cold for when you cut it, stab it, and dip it. After it has frozen, use your sharp knife and strong muscles to cut it into pieces.

Keeping it completely frozen, dip it into your melted chocolate. If the chocolate is too thick, feel free to add in a few tbsp of oil to thin it out.

When I first tried dipping, I was using a toothpick to hold the cheesecake bite, but it kept sliding off. I then tried a fork, but it would sometimes break my bite into pieces, which is only partially due to the fact that they weren’t entirely frozen anymore.

Finally, I took a chance on the spoon, gently dropping each bite in the chocolate and using the spoon to roll it around and cover all the sides. Go ahead and try whatever method you’d like, but take it from me and just dive right into spoon dunking.

Or, if you don’t feel like going through the process of all that hassle, do it how I did when taking pictures of them. Place your cold bites on a wire rack in a baking sheet and just pour all of your chocolate on top. It may not be the prettiest by the end since the chocolate doesn’t fall perfectly, but it gets the job done quickly and easily.

Another way you could decorate them, which, if done well, will give you the prettiest results, would be to drizzle the chocolate on top. You can even mix it up with different kinds of chocolate, like the white chocolate drizzle in the pictures!

Last but not least, you chill them. I know, again. But this process is what gives it that delightful snap of the chocolate when you bite into it and break the shell. And it would feel kind of weird to have a mix of temperatures; who would want to have warm chocolate on one side of their mouth and ice-cold cheesecake on the other? It’s not a microwaved meal!

Conclusion:

It may seem like a lot of time and effort to make something that looks so cute and simple in the end, but trust me you’ll thank me when you’re done. Even more than that, your taste buds will thank me when you’re done.

If you liked this recipe, leave a comment below, and check out some of my other similar recipes, like Mom’s Famous Cherry Cheesecake or Pumpkin Cake Pops! Happy Halloween and happy baking!

Leftover Halloween Candy Cheesecake Bites

Use up all of your leftover Halloween candy in a deliciously sophisticated way with these Cheesecake Bites! Perfectly creamy cheesecake filled with chopped Halloween candy bars, atop a buttery graham cracker crust, all coated in a chocolate shell!

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Prep Time 30

Cook Time 1

Chill Time 4

Total Time 5 30

Course Dessert

Servings 36 bites

Ingredients

Graham Cracker Crust:

9 whole graham crackers crushed into crumbs (*see notes)
1/2 cup butter melted

Cheesecake Filling:

16 ounces cream cheese bricks room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup heavy whipping cream
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 1/2 cup candy bars chopped (*see notes)

Chocolate Coating:

16 ounces semisweet chocolate (*see notes)

Instructions

Graham Cracker Crust:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
Line an 8"x8" square pan with tin foil and spray with non-stick cooking spray.
In a small bowl, combine graham cracker crumbs and melted butter with a fork. You may need to add more crumbs or more melted butter to get the correct consistency.
Press mixture evenly into prepared pan.
Bake the crust for 10 minutes or until lightly golden (you should be able to smell the crust in the oven when it's ready).

Cheesecake Filling:

Reduce oven heat to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.
Using an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese until smooth in a large bowl.
Add in the sugar, heavy whipping cream, and vanilla, and beat until combined.
Add in the eggs, one at a time, beating lightly between each addition until just combined. It's very important not to overbeat the batter once the eggs are added; however, you can beat for as long as you want before this addition.
Stir in the chopped candy bars, chocolate, fudge, or whatever other ingredient you'd like.
Pour the batter into the cooled crust.
Bake for anywhere between 30-60 minutes or until set. You will know it's set once it's slightly golden and the middle is only slightly jiggly. The key here is to keep a close eye on it after the first 30 minutes, you don't want to overbake it, but you definitely don't want to underbake it! (*see notes)
Keeping the cheesecake in the pan, let it cool completely on a wire rack, then move it to the freezer and let it chill for at least 3 hours.

Chocolate Coating:

Once frozen, lift the cheesecake out of the pan and gently peel away the foil.
Using a sharp knife, cut the cheesecake into 36 bite-sized squares. If the bites become too soft, put them back into the freezer until chilled again.
Place the chocolate in a microwave safe bowl and heat for 1-2 minutes in 30 second increments, stirring in between each increment, until the chocolate is melted.
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Dip each bite into the melted chocolate, coating them completely. I use a fork to do this process, since the bites just fall off of a toothpick. It's very important that the bites are cold for this so that they do not fall apart as you are coating them. Let the excess chocolate drip off and place the finished bite on the baking sheet. You could also coat them by pouring the chocolate over top (place the bites on a wire rack with a baking sheet underneath to catch the drippings), or by drizzling them with the chocolate.
Refrigerate or freeze until the chocolate is set.
Enjoy! Serve chilled, or store in a container in the fridge or freezer.

Notes

*I usually buy my graham crackers in pre-crumbed form. I usually measure the amount of crust needed by eye, so start by adding in about 1/4-1/2 cup of graham cracker crumbs to about 1 tbsp of melted butter and go from there. I also love to use chocolate graham cracker crumbs, or oreo crumbs, to get a chocolate crust!

*Feel free to use whatever candy bars you like! I use any mixture of things I have leftover, but make sure they’re chocolate candy bars and not straight up candy, because I bet having gummies in cheesecake would not be very good! For example, some things I use are: kit kats, aeros, mars, reeses PB cups, M&M’s, coffee crisps, chocolate fudge pieces etc. You could even use just regular chocolate chips if you want to make this during non-Halloween candy season!

*I use bakers chocolate bars since they’re the best for melting, but feel free to use any kind of chocolate (bars, chips, morsels etc.), keeping in mind the fact that they all melt differently. The best way to melt them is to go in short intervals, or to be even more careful, set your microwave to 50% power. You could also melt the chocolate in a double boiler/bain marie if you know how to, but I prefer to just use the microwave since it’s less of a hassle.

*It’s okay if you’re cheesecake comes out with cracks! You’ll be cutting it anyway, so for me personally, I find the cracks completely fine, I just try to cut along the cracks. If the cracks bug you a lot, feel free to try baking in a water bath, or even just adding a bath of water in the bottom of your oven to add more moisture in the oven and even out the temperature. Keep in mind that if you are using a water bath, it will take longer to cook since the water will retain the heat and cook the cheesecake slower and more gently.

Keyword bites, cheesecake, leftover halloween candy