Upside Down Pumpkin Crumb Cake

Between all of our back and forth emails and texts about implementing MailChimp, importing Disquis, editing URLs and formatting posts, Peyton and I exchanged a few non-blog related conversations. She told me she had a great recipe for me if I wasn't pumpkin-ed out yet. Pumpkin-ed out, ha never. This recipe is decades old and comes from an old church cookbook of her mom's. All good recipes derive from some old church pot-luck party.

I made this cake to pair with Sunday night dinner. And it's just like oh so dang amazing. I think it even converted my brother-in-law into a pumpkin fan. He says he doesn't like "orange food"... we don't claim him sometimes. Pumpkin, sweet potatoes and butternut squash are all very important foods in my life.

The whole cake gets flipped over making the buttery pecan crumb layer the base. The pumpkin cake layer gets sandwiched in the middle and is almost like a layer of pumpkin pie. Slap on cream cheese whipped frosting and you've got a cherry on top. This cake is getting put in the repeat recipe box ASAP.

Upside Down Pumpkin Crumb Cake
yields 1 9x13 cake

Ingredients:
1 can of pumpkin puree
1 can of evaporated milk
1 cup sugar
1/s tsp. cinnamon
3 eggs
1 box yellow cake mix
1 cup chopped pecans, plus more for decoration
2 sticks melted butter, cooled

Frosting:
1 8oz stick of cream cheese, room temp
3/4 cup Cool Whip, thawed
1 1/2 cup powdered sugar

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9x13 dish with wax paper. Melt your butter and set aside to let cool. Whisk the first five ingredients together and pour into your dish. Evenly distribute the dry cake mix over the pumpkin mixture. Sprinkle in the chopped pecans and lightly pat them into the cake mix. Pour your cooled butter over the nuts then bake for 50-60 minutes. Let cool.

Using an electric mixer combine the frosting ingredients. Once the cake is cooled, run a knife along the edges. Invert on to a tray and remove the wax paper. The crumb part will now be on the bottom. Frost and decorate with pecans!