Christmas Countdown- Maple Squares

Well, Christmas is getting closer and I for one am becoming increasingly excited. Today I finished work for the holidays and I am looking forward to the next five days where the focus will be on festive fun! Earlier in the week I was looking for something quick and delicious as I was pressed for time. When I was at a loss for what to make I headed over to the good folks at King Arthur Flour. Ever since they provided me with excellent online chat assistance, I have been a fan. When I saw these squares I knew that KAF once again hadn’t let me down.

What I loved about these squares was that they were super easy and super delicious. You can’t really ask for much more than that when you still have shopping, wrapping and more baking ahead of you. Head on over to King Arthur for the recipe.

Caroline

Pumpkin and Maple Cream Cheese Bundt

Happy National Bundt Day! Mary, the Food Librarian, once again counted down to today by posting 30 bundts in 30 days. I love Mary’s blog, she always has tasty treats and beautiful photos. And of course, as mentioned before, I am partial to her blog as we are both librarians. I decided to join in the fun by making a pumpkin bundt with a maple cream cheese filling. I used mini bundt pans and I confess, I filled them too full. I guess I haven’t quite mastered them yet. Oh well, just another excuse to keep making bundts!

Pumpkin Bundt Cake (adapted from King Arthur Flour)

1/3 cup oil (I used canola but the original recipe indicated vegetable)

2 large eggs

1 cup sugar

1 cup canned pumpkin

1 tsp pumpkin pie spice

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

1 1/4 cups flour

Maple Cream Cheese Filling
6 oz cream cheese, softened
2 tbs sugar
2 tbs brown sugar
3 tbs maple syrup
1 tbs flour
1 egg white

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 and grease your pans.

2. Mix together oil, eggs, sugar, pumpkin, pumpkin pie spice, cinnamon, salt, and baking powder. (I used my stand mixer.)

3. Add flour and mix until just blended.  Set aside the batter.

4. Mix together all the cream cheese filling ingredients until smooth.

5. To assemble the cake, pour pumpkin batter into pans until 1/3 full. Then add a reasonable amount of the cream cheese mixture (sorry I eyeballed it). Then add more batter on top.

6. Bake for until tester comes out clean. This entirely depends on your pan size. Start by putting your timer on for 20 minutes and then keep checking.

BTW I had extra filling so I made pumpkin muffins to use it up!

Caroline