Two-Ingredient Pumpkin Cake & A Brown Sugar Apple Cider Glaze

Oh my happy days, October is here, Fall is here, and that means it's time for pumpkin stuff and spice stuff!!

Last Friday we had dinner with some friends, and we were on Dessert Duty. Obviously, I perused good ol' Pinterest for a sweet and fancy fall recipe, and boy did I find a good one! Two-Ingredient Pumpkin Cake! Well, it was half good. The base was good, but I didn't agree with the glaze they suggested, so I created my own. I was more than please with the outcome, and now I am passing it along to you!

Two-Ingredient Pumpkin Cake

• 1 Box of Spice cake mix
• I can of Pumpkin

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Combine pumpkin and cake mix until light and fluffy, pour it in a greased 7x10 baking dish, cook for 28 minutes (or until a fork poked in the center comes out clean). It's that easy!

*I have heard of this being made with any cake mix, I have used yellow (pictured) but it is incredibly more delicious with Spice.

Brown Sugar Apple Cider Glaze

• 1/4 cup (4 tbsp) of Butter
• 3/4 cup packed Light Brown Sugar
• 1/2 cup Apple Cider
• 1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract

Melt butter in a small skillet, add brown sugar and apple cider, bring to a boil. Add vanilla extract, reduce to simmer. Simmer for 5-10 minutes, stirring regularly. Pour directly on the poked cake, don't let the glaze sit.

This is a good step to do while the cake is baking. When you bring the cake out of the oven and the fork is clean, let the cake sit for about 5 minutes. After it's settled, use your fork to poke holes all over the cake, about 1.5-2 inches apart, making sure to go all the way to to bottom of the cake. Carefully pour the glaze over the cake, trying to coat it evenly. You do not have to use the entire glaze. I ended up with about 1/4 c of glaze left over.

Also, I can't stress enough, make sure you smooth the surface of the cake before putting it into the oven! The shape you leave it is the shape it bakes. My cake came out looking like sweet potatoes! :)

We ended up serving the cake with some vanilla ice cream, and it was amazingly delicious. I was pleasantly surprised that it turned out so well, and was so easy!

I hope you try this recipe, and please let me know how it turned out for you!

Super Easy Peanut Butter Cookies

It has been overcast all day... more overcast than it has been recently, and the temperature has gone down considerably. We're in the Summer-to-Fall transition, and I love it.

I love the view from my dining room...

This afternoon my son had the right idea: "Mommy, I want cookies." But, we didn't have any. As far as I knew, we didn't have ingredients to make any. I KNEW we didn't have any chocolate chips, so I checked my sugar cookie recipe. Nope, don't have baking soda, don't have vanilla extract... damn. Mmk, what else can I do? Oh right! My sister told me about some peanut butter cookie recipe with only three ingredients. I knew I had the bare basics, so between getting my baby to take a nap, and getting my oldest to sit still long enough, I looked into it.

Huzzah!

I think I found a good one here.

3 Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies

Here's the lineup:

 

Guess how easy these were... go ahead! Nope, easier. Just mix up your peanut butter, sugar, and an egg. SERIOUSLY! Then you drop a spoonful onto a cookie sheet, criss-cross them with a sugared fork, and pop them in the oven for a few minutes. 

So then, after they're done, bring 'em out of the oven.

Let them settle for a minute or two, then they're ready to be put on a plate and/or consumed.

Don't forget the milk...

Here's the recipe! ::

• 1 cup Creamy Peanut Butter
• 1 cup White/Granulated Sugar
• 1 egg

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees (f). Mix all ingredients until fully incorporated. Spoon 1 - 1 1/2 inch size balls onto a cookie sheet, then press the balls down in a criss-cross pattern with a long fork. To keep the fork from sticking, dip it in sugar after each cookie. Put the cookies in the oven for 6-8 minutes, taking care not to burn. Remove from oven, and let cookies set for 1-2 minutes before removing from cookie sheet. Make sure cookies are cool before eating. Enjoy!

I'm pretty sure my son just brought a chair into the kitchen... that means he's trying to stealthily find more cookies. (Little does he know, sound travels.) Now, if you don't mind, I have to go surprise him and eat some yummies :)