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!

Thumbs up to upside down pumpkin crumb cake!

Annie

Bites of My Life

Double post today and double bites today! Take A Bite went into hiding last week while I was working on getting my new site launched. A few technically difficulties set us back, but the time off built up the anticipation. Today is double the bites double the fun, to cover the past two weeks. I kept my bites condensed to not bore you with my life happenings. But heck, this site is about daily bites of my life, so lets get after it. 

-Halloween week naturally meant pumpkin everything, starting with this D@#% Good Pumpkin Soup. 
-Checked taking a food photography class off my to-do list! Need to brush up on some of the basics of my camera before I delve deep into Lindsay's tips.
-More pumpkin with this amazing Pumpkin Curry.
-Cured my halloween sugar coma and other things with breakfast tacos. 
-Naturally I went food related with my costume this year as a Pig in a Blanket!
-Ended the weekend crossing another thing off my Fall TDL, by enjoying the most gorgeous day riding bikes around downtown. 

-Molly and I decided to take our friendship from the Internet to pen and paper. Everyone loves getting mail and now it's even better with my bestie pen pal.
-Some lovey dovey pumpkin oats to start the day.
-Friday night wine and dine.
-Topped off with me, Ben and Jerry. 
-Kept the dinner and dessert trend going Sunday night with this incredible upside down pumpkin crumb cake, recipe to come. 
-And a big bowl of jambalaya and corn bread, recipe also to come. 

I hope you guys are enjoying the site as much as me. I have quite the pep in my step!

Annie

Live

Live from Oklahoma City, it's my new site design!!!!! Oh buddy this is a long time coming and I can't believe it finally happened. Isn't she lovely, isn't she wonderful? My sweet little DIY photoshop site I put together 2 years ago was in need of a little updating. 

Let's go through some new features and some of my favorite parts of the site. The Recipe Box feature in the right sidebar, so cute, right? All my recipes neatly categorized with themed pictures to organize them. The About page too, all my favorite things in one place. How great is the Instagram widget in the footer of the site? And finally make sure to subscribe via email (found in the right sidebar) to get Take A Bite sent straight to your inbox. I'm using a new service now that will make email posts look much prettier!

Last summer I started doing research on switching from blogger to a new hosting site. I would do research then realized it was to hard, then a few months later I'd do it again and realize it was too hard, then so on and so on. With 400+ posts I wasn't about to put 2.5 years of work on the line with the easy chance I would mistakenly delete it all somehow in the process. This summer I did a little more research and found blogging guru Bobbi, and realized with her help, it wouldn't be so hard to switch from Blogger to Squarespace. After some consultation with Peyton and Madison and hearing how much they have loved their Squarespace site I knew it was time to take the plunge.

Peyton and Madison are angels and took the ropes on all the design work. They took ideas I didn't even know I had and turned them into all of this! They are serious design angels. 

Huge kudos to Bobbi from Ready to Blog for taking all the techie ropes and peacefully transferring all my years of work to this beautiful new site. Ditto to Peyton and Madison for creating all design aspects and making the site look better than I could have wished, as well as to Peyton for being my Squarespace help center! She has an answer to all of my questions.

Stop in, stay a while, take a bite and enjoy!

  Annie  

Halloween Sluts

I don't mean to offend anyone, but I hate, HATE those slutty Halloween costumes you can buy at the party store. You know, the sexy Alice in Wonderland, sexy kitten or sexy fireman? Fireman are supposed to be respected, not turned into skimpy sexy outfits for girls to parade around in on Halloween. I've never seen a fireman walking around in knee-high socks and heels with a little red skirt and fireman hat on. At least not in Oklahoma.

These Halloween brownies are slutty, but not in a slutty costume kind of way. I'm on a slutty brownie kick and pretty much think they are going to be my go-to dessert from now on. Don't be surprised if Christmas, Valentine's Day and St. Patrick's Day slutty brownies pop up in the future. Thank goodness Oreo likes to celebrate as much as me and provides themed cookies to go with each holiday.

Third times the charm because this batch turned out perfect! Tips I learned: make sure you use a 9x9 pan, an 8x8 won't cut it. Double layer your foil, for easier removal from the pan, and 35 minutes is the baking time that has worked best for me to get fully cooked slutty brownies.

Halloween Slutty Brownies
yields 16-20 brownies
Recipe stays the same as the original just sub holiday themed Oreos for the regular ones and add holiday sprinkles!

Annie

#TBHT

In honor of throwback Thursday, a Halloween throwback seemed appropriate. Happy #TBHT!

I was always the cutest, sorry sistas.

I mean, c'mon? I even had little chopsticks in my hair.

 

My little neighborhood clan and trick-or-treating sidekicks. This costume is still talked about because my dad, yes my dad, sewed my cowardly lion costume. He's a man of many talents I tell you.

I always had an affinity for inanimate object costumes...here a cup of hot chocolate, below a present, not pictured the year I was a flower in a flower pot.

Ahh the glorious middle school days. We will stop here. Happy Halloween all!

 

Annie