Nutella Pumpkin Cake - A great snack for....

...after school and your kids are driving you bonkers.
...late at night when your stomach starts yelling at you that the chicken you had for dinner just didn't cut it.
...first thing in the morning when you're too lazy to even make a bowl of cereal.
...any darned time you want something really, really good.

Cream butter, sugar, brown sugar. Add an egg and vanilla.

Add some pumpkin.

Whisk together flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, and salt.

Mix in the flour mixture until just combined.

Spread batter evenly into the pan.

Drop tablespoons of Nutella all over the cake batter. Eat a few spoonfuls for yourself...go on, no one is looking!

Swirl, baby, Swirl!

Mmmm...snacky.

Nutella Pumpkin Cake

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons of cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon fresh nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 large egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup pumpkin
1 cup Nutella

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Spray a 9x13inch baking pan with cooking spray. Set aside.


In a large bowl, cream butter and sugars until smooth. Beat in the egg and vanilla until well blended. Add the pumpkin. 

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, and salt.  

Reduce speed to low, and mix in the flour mixture until just combined.  Spread batter evenly into the prepared pan.

Drop tablespoons of Nutella all over the pumpkin cake batter. Swirl in the Nutella with a knife.

Bake for about 35-40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool completely. 

September is for Zombies

Ah, September...

...30 days hath!
...Best Earth, Wind and Fire song ever!
...Labor Day three day weekend!
...School is in full swing.
...It's almost fall, my second favorite season.
...International Day of Peace on the 21st.
...Who doesn't love International Talk Like A Pirate Day on the 19th?
...My birthday (which means....Pirogi!!! Always legendary...)
...It's just that much closer to winter!
...Little Lawyer's birthday!

And there are quite a few more legendary thing to look forward to this September!

We will be in the Splatter Zone for Evil Dead: The Musical on September 3rd at the Venice Pinkerton Theatre! We are really excited about that...especially the kids! And, yes...we let our nine year old watch Evil Dead, Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness. Bash if you must, but she likes....nay, loves...campy horror movies. She doesn't care for the scare-you-so-you-can't-fall-asleep stuff, but loves stuff like Evil Dead, Jaws, Lost Boys, and the like.  She knows it's all fake fun. You should see her do the Necronomicon! (Think along the lines of the Time Warp in Rocky Horror Picture Show...which, by the way, she does fantastically as well!)

As long as we are talking about Little Lawyer, I will bring up her birthday again.  Birthday traditions in our house include picking whatever you want for dinner and what kind of cake you want. She wants a full Fondue dinner, starting with cheese and bread, meat, seafood, and of course chocolate. Then she wants to do karaoke with a few friends.  She drew out the design she wants for her birthday cake:

So we will have our hands full with that.  Papa Bear does a great job with decorating a cake! We are still debating making the eyeball out of cake so we can eat it, or making it non-edible for a cake topper she can keep and scare people with later. Decisions, decisions.... I will, of course, post all about her birthday when it happens.

Full steam ahead planning begins for The Sarasota Zombie Pub Crawl - an event we started last year that went over really well.  It's zombies, beer, friends and fun - what more could one ask for? It's a lot of hard work, but it's so worth it. We made some really great friends last year, and can't wait to do it all again.

Our friends, Renee and Eric, are launching Shriekfreak Online - an interactive online indie horror community with tons of user submitted articles, reviews, interviews, news, art, merchandise and more. Seriously, check 'em out - It's going to be legendary! Eric asked if I would like to submit some articles and recipes for a kind of 'gruesome gastronomy' type feature. Not only am I honored that he would think to ask me, but I love a challenge, so I'm already thinking up some cool ideas! Little Lawyer's birthday cake might be my very first submission...

Speaking of Eric, I made these for his birthday last week:

These are Guinness Chocolate Cupcakes with Extra Stout Beer Foam and Chocolate Stout Icing. Yum. I found this recipe for the cupcakes and this recipe for the frosting, which I ended up tweaking. I followed the recipe for the glaze, but it made a ton of it, so instead of following the recipe for the icing, I used the remaining glaze as the base to make the frosting by adding the unsweetened chocolate and adding more powdered sugar until I got the consistency of icing I wanted. Eric loves him some Guinness and I figured that his birthday was the perfect excuse to make these! Although, I have been know to just show up at their door with food before for no apparent reason...but I digress. They don't seem to mind too much (they aren't chasing me away with a pitchfork or torch or anything like that...well, yet anyway). Renee, whose birthday is in September also, might end up with Irish Car Bomb cupcakes....


And look forward to my upcoming post on my birthday dinner - heaven floating in a plate of butter - Pirogi. Legendary.