Tasty Tuesday - Pumpkin Love

Just in time for Thanksgiving, my favorite fall recipe: Pumpkin Roll. Of course, since we're eating soy and dairy free right now I can't have the cream cheese frosting that makes a pumpkin roll the wonderful delicousness that it is, but I've got a pumpkin bar recipe with a maple syrup glaze that's pretty darn tasty too.

If you think rolling cakes isn't for you, don't be intimidated- it's really not hard! Of course, you could always just put the cream cheese frosting on the pumpkin bars. But for some reason, food that is rolled just tastes so much better.

Pumpkin Roll
3/4 c. all-purpose flour

1/2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. baking soda
1 t. ground cinnamon
1/4 t. ground cloves
1/4 t. nutmeg

1/4 t. salt
3 large eggs
1 c. granulated sugar
2/3 c. pumpkin

Filling:

1 pkg. (8 oz.) cream cheese, at room temperature
1 c. powdered sugar, sifted
6 T butter or margarine, softened
1 t. vanilla extract
Powdered sugar (optional for decoration)

Preheat oven to 375° F. Grease 15 x 10-inch jelly-roll pan; line with wax paper. Grease and flour paper. Sprinkle a thin, cotton kitchen towel with powdered sugar (linen, don't use terry cloth).

Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and salt in small bowl. Beat eggs and granulated sugar in large mixer bowl until thick. Beat in pumpkin. Stir in flour mixture. Spread evenly into prepared pan.

Bake for 13 to 15 minutes or until top of cake springs back when touched. Immediately loosen and turn cake onto prepared towel. Carefully peel off wax paper. Roll up cake and towel together, starting with narrow end. Cool on wire rack. (Be sure to put enough powdered sugar on the towel when rolling up the cake so it will not stick.)

For the filling; beat cream cheese, 1 cup powdered sugar, butter and vanilla extract in small mixer bowl until smooth. Carefully unroll cake (after completely cooled). Spread cream cheese mixture over cake. Reroll cake. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least one hour. Sprinkle with powdered sugar before serving, if desired.

Gooey Bars

Gooey Bars are to YUMMY as Christmas is to Santa.
Mom and I spent the weekend and part of this week furiously baking cookies. We were busy making sugar cookies, thumbprint cookies, peanut butter kiss cookies, spritz cookies, gingersnaps, M&M cookies, snickerdoodles, and of course gooey bars- and I just have to say the Gooey Bars are definitely my favorite.

So I'm sharing the recipe... make it at your own risk, because you might not be able to stay out of them!

Gooey Bars
2/3 c. evaporated milk (divided into 2 - 1/3 c.)
1 bag unwrapped caramels
1/2 bag of chocolate chips
1 box of German chocolate cake mix
1 c. finely chopped pecans

Melt caramels with 1/3 c. evaporated milk.

Mix German chocolate cake mix with 1/3 c. evaporated milk and pecans. Press 1/2 the cake mix into greased 11x13 pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 6 minutes.

Sprinkle chocolate chips over baked portion of mix. Drizzle with melted caramels.

Cover mixture with remaining German chocolate cake mix. Bake at 350 for 18-20 minutes.

Refrigerate before cutting, or you're going to have to eat this with a spoon. Enjoy!
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