Pumpkin Pound Cake with Cream Cheese Glaze

 So there is nothing I love more than pumpkin.  Well almost nothing, but pumpkin makes me very happy, not sure if it is the thought of fall or the yummy smell of it when you are baking.  Whatever it is, I love it!  So I knew that when I saw these super cute bake and serve mini loaf pans I had to make it pumpkin something.

Can you see all those eggs, 15 and three cups of butter.  Man there was so much, that should have clued me in before I started mixing it all together.

 Now I found these super cute pans at the local Winners which is like a warehouse, but not really.  They have home stuff, clothing and such and it is all brand name, just last years style and such.  Anyway, I love that store.  I went after Christmas and was digging and found about 8 packs of these things.  They were for $1.80 on mark down, so for 8 tins for $1.80 you cannot go wrong. They are all different styles, but who cares right? It means I don't have to wash tins and they are cute.  Win win people!

So I was stupid and used my hand blender to beat those egg whites, took forever.  Next time I just clean out my kitchen aid bowl.  And I love how I say next time, like I would do something this stupid again.  Never mind, I probably will.

So to start I sort of wanted to do a bread, but a sweet one.  So pound cake is what I thought of. And so I went on line and looked for the perfect cake.  Basically it had to have pumpkin in it, so it was not too hard to find.  I found this.  The Streaming gourmet made it sound yummy, and easy.  And I also figured I needed to triple the batch.  Sometimes I am just stupid, this is one of those times.

The batter really lightened up with the egg whites, but it was so hard to mix by hand.  Stupid wimpy arms.

Pumpkin Pound Loaf
By the Streaming Gourmet( altered slightly)
This makes one loaf, I tripled this.

-1 cup butter
-2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
-1 TSP baking powder
-1/2 TSP salt
-2 TSP pumpkin pie spice
-1 cup sugar
-5 large eggs, separated
-1/2 cup pureed pumpkin
-2 TSP vanilla bean paste

Pre heat oven to 350 and prepare your pans, if using paper ones like I did no need to prepare them other than putting them on a cookie tray.

Sift all dry ingredients together and set aside. Cream the butter then slowly add the sugar and cream together. Blend in egg yolks one at a time, making sure to fully mix after each one. Add the pumpkin and vanilla and fully mix.

Add dry ingredients in three additions mixing by hand, I used the machine, there was a lot of batter.

In a different bowl beat egg whites until they form soft peaks.  Once done fold into the pumpkin batter to fully mix it.  At this point I was swearing up a storm, there was so much batter and I was getting tired.  But it turned out okay, maybe not as fluffy as was intended but it worked.

Place into your pans and bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. It took about 20 minutes for my mini ones, she said over an hour for the large loaf pan. Allow to fully cool.

I just used a larger ice cream scoop, and filled them like I do my cupcakes.  I did use the back of a spoon to spread it out a bit as the batter was super thick.

  So I wanted to triple the batch so I could have enough to share with lots of people.  This meant I called Hubby in a panic needing more eggs, I needed 15 and only had like 13.  I may have also been in my sweat pants and tank top, after changing after work. I never thought I would need that many, so that is why a normal person would fully read the recipe before they start.  Also if I had only made one loaf the can of pumpkin I had would have been way too much so it made sense at the time.  I swear.

See how pretty?  I have a convection oven so they baked pretty evenly, but if I did it again I would turn the pans half way, the ones at the back were darker than the ones at the front.

I ended up with 32 of these little cuties.  I ate one right out of the oven because I was not convinced it was baked through.  It was but it was light and I was sad, I thought a pound cake should be dense.  And it was not.  Oh well I figured no one else had to know, I would just tell them it was pumpkin loaf, not pound cake.  But after they cooled over night they became perfect, so I was thrilled.

Oh gosh, don't you just want to eat that with a spoon. I wonder what it would be like to freeze cream cheese icing and make it sort of like an ice cream.  I now have a new mission, cream cheese ice cream.  I can feel my tummy hurting already!

 I wanted to frost them, but not too much. So I decided on a glaze.  A cream cheese glaze.  I could have eaten just that, but then I would have probably been sick for days. So I refrained, I have some control you know.

Cream Cheese Glaze
by me, just tossing stuff in a bowl

-1 block cream cheese
-1 TBSP vanilla bean paste
-milk and icing sugar as needed

So cream the cream cheese.  And yes I know that sounds redundant, but cream cheese really isn't creamy if you get me. Anyway, do that, then add your vanilla.  Once you have done that add a few TBSPs of milk and then add sugar.  Add sugar until it is thick as you like, I wanted it to have some body, not a watery glaze, so it was spoon able  but it was really thin.  Does that make any sense?  No?  Well just do what you like, I won't judge you; too much.

I kept getting glaze on my fingers putting these into the bags.  And then I got lazy and just started wiping them on my pants because I was going to bed right after so they would be in the laundry.  I was so tempted to just keep licking my fingers, but I figure that is gross, and well, gross.

So once that was done I put them in clear plastic bags that I pack my cookies in.  They are pleated so they flared enough so that the cake fit perfectly. Then I just tied them with ribbon and put them in the fridge to set up.

See how pretty?  You just pull up the white frill on the wrapper and it pulled apart, there was some glue so you had to work at it, but it was still not too bad.

I took a bunch to work, and they were eaten and loved.  Or so I am told, one guy said his co workers were mean and gave him the one with the least icing.  I felt badly, but not badly enough to share the one I had packed in my lunch.

See how cute it is? 

These are great to eat out of the wrapper, just pull it apart and eat.  I liked slicing it up like a big loaf cake and eating each slice like it was huge, and then I felt like I was pigging out, when really I wasn't  Well not as much anyway. I think these would make cute gifts for the holidays, which I am sure those wrappers were really made for. Either way, I loved them, but would not triple the batch again, because I thought I was going to die mixing it all.  And no cake is worth death, even if it is covered in cream cheese icing.

I couldn't eat a whole one at one sitting, it was too much, but I sure tried.

Cream Cheese Wedding Mints

Seriously this is the only good picture I took.  I am even ashamed of that.

Okay don't judge this post by it's title.  If you do you will miss out on one yummy treat!

  I have heard about these mints a few times, and then a little while ago the ladies on a board I chat on had brought them up.  I had not heard of them before that board, and from what I could gather in parts of the states they are the one thing that every celebration has to have.  Like their name, they are for weddings, you make them in the bridal colours.  Usually in a flower and leaf shape, to be all wedding like.  And apparently no party is a real party without these.

At this point, I was thinking it looked gross.  But I kept telling myself, it's just a big batch of really thick cream cheese icing.

  Now I say they are from the states, but I googled and there looked to be a few different versions, all with slightly different recipes.  I think I narrowed it down to Nebraska being the centre of it all.  And by that I mean I saw the name Nebraska and just stopped looking any farther.  So I may be totally wrong.  I don't know, but I have been wrong before.  Like once before.

I had visions of making all these different shapes and stuff.  Then I gave up and did just pumpkins.

  So in looking it up all the recipes had the same basic ingredients. Cream cheese, icing sugar and mint.  Some called for vanilla, others for some butter and some even left the mint out and used other flavors.  So I did what I always do and did the easiest thing I could.

  And these mints are usually shaped or even rolled into pillow like mint shapes.  I even read that there are special molds for these.  And since here in Canada they have probably never heard of these, I just used what I had.

  I was going to make tiny little mints, but then once I mixed it all together and noticed I had a lot more dough than I expected,I used a bigger mold.  I also like mint, like a lot, so I wanted them bigger.

That is a ball o' wedding mint stuff, in a bowl of sugar.  I know, amazing right?

  So here you go, how this Canadian girl tried cream cheese wedding mints, and is now going to make them again.  Maybe.

 Cream Cheese Wedding Mints
I sort of just went with the least amount of stuff, so it's by me, sort of:

-1 8oz block of cream cheese
-2 kg of icing sugar, I did not measure, I just used the whole bag I had, sorry
-1/2 TSP peppermint/ mint extract ( you can add more or less, I might up it to 3/4 TSP next time)
-food colouring paste if you like

See I have all these super cute silicon baking things, and I swear I never use them until after the holiday they are for.  But this time I was way ahead of the game.

  So basically you mix it all together.  I started by creaming the cheese, then adding the mint and food colouring.  I used my scrapper paddle to start, but then switched over to the metal paddle as this is one thick dough.  Once it was almost all together, the machine was having a hard time, I took it out and mixed it by hand.

This is all I got out of that batch, but seriously these are huge mints.

  Now this was a huge pain in the butt for me.  I have these nail stickers on that are sort of flaking off, but not enough that I want to take them off.  But enough that I didn't want to chance it, so I had to wear plastic gloves, and the ones I have are really loose, so it was a pain.  Anyway, I started kneading it all on parchment, but got annoyed and just did the rest on the table, until it was all together, it was still a little sticky, but not that bad.

  So I got started, set Pork Chop up with his own little bit to do.  And then he started screaming "this is cheese!!!! I can smell the cheese!!!"  Which is not as funny as it sounds when the whole table was covered in stuff and he was doing this, like the "cheese" was going to kill him.  I had told him it would be like play d'oh, well it wasn't so he wanted nothing more to do with it.  This is why I cannot bond with him over baking, unless he can sniff the flour, he is out.

  And just so you know, I had talked this up for a few days, how we were going to make play d'oh you can eat and how fun it would all be.

  Yeah well, whatever, I give up!

I really liked the skulls, those in plain white would be really neat.  And that blob to the right was half a bird.  The tail broke off, so I ate it.  And I even tried to do some super man and bat man ones, because if there is one thing I know.  I need to justify the comic molds I bought.

  So according to what I read you take a bit of the dough and roll it into a ball, then roll the ball in regular white sugar and push it into the mold you want to use.  They usually use one mold and pop the mint out right away.  Well my mints were big and I figured they needed a few minutes to set up before popping them out.  So I used a silicon mold I have, it is pumpkins and I bought it to make cake balls.  I will soon, I promise.  Anyway I filled the whole mold then popped them all out and put them on parchment in a cake pan in a single layer.

  Now from reading some people leave them out to dry anywhere from an hour to forever, like they never refrigerate them.  I don't know how I feel about that, as there is cheese in them.  So I let them set to dry for about 1 hour or so and then packed them up and into the fridge.  I am paranoid that way.

  I also tried a few smaller molds and what not.  I found then too detailed to be any good for this.  So I stuck with the larger ones.  I like easy people.

I don't know how cool Bat man and Super man would feel being immortalized in cheese and sugar, but I bet they would love it.

  So I ate one, and I was all " I  don't know how I feel about that"  I mean you can sort of taste the cream cheese, it was almost like a really dense cream cheese icing, but with a hint of mint.  So I ate another, then another.  And then I had diner, then I ate another.  I have no control.  But I think they were really good.

  So the next day I took them to both works.  I also had one for myself, and I liked it even more when it was firmer and cold.  So I think they were so good, but I might up the mint just a tiny bit.  Also when I gave them to the elevator guys one of the guys said he had those mints before in the states, because I had to explain what they were. He said he liked them, but you know they could just be being nice.

  And my other job, they seemed to be trying to be nice and not say what they really thought.  I said I want to know, so they said it was not one of the better things I have made.  So I said I may have to dip them in chocolate and try again, that sounded good to them, so we will see.  And just so you know it is like 3 weeks later and they are all almost still there, so I have to throw them out.

  Not one of my better treats.  Oh well, at least I tried.


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