In Full House, conversations follow one of two courses. The first, we shall call “The Smitten Kitchen” course. For those who don’t know, smittenkitchen.com is one of the best food blogs out there. This conversation goes: “Have you seen the newest Smitten Kitchen recipe?” “Yes!” “Can we make it?” “Yes!” The other course of conversation we shall call the “Wait! What if We…” course. It usually goes: “So… I bought these Brussels sprouts at Weshop. Do you want to make something with them tonight?” “With butter and onions? Wait—and curry!” “And cumin!” “Wait, not onions. What about shallots?” “Garlic!” And so on.

This recipe, tellingly, is the result of the second kind of conversation and starts, naturally, with a birthday—specifically the 19th birthday of Seti O’Brien ’14. In honor of the fall season, we wanted to make something with pumpkin and a generous amount of spices. We settled on an old favorite from Smitten Kitchen for the pumpkin cake (we couldn’t resist), but became enchanted with an imagined chai tea flavored frosting for which we had no recipe. And so it began.

We started with two sticks of butter, some powdered sugar, and chai tea concentrate that our friend Reid made. It was a disaster. It was frothy, not creamy, and tasted overwhelmingly of fake sugar. Our first solution, naturally, was to add another stick of butter (less softened than the first two). The texture improved, but the flavor was still lacking. So in came what amounted to perhaps a hazardous amount of spices and lots of giddy exclamations of “whoops!” as we added twice the amount of cinnamon or nutmeg that we originally intended. In the end, we succeeded. The cake was moist and flavorful and the icing did not taste remotely fake—just creamy, dreamy, and warmly spicy. And the birthday girl was very happy.

Pumpkin Cake

Barely adapted from smittenkitchen.com

-1 stick unsalted butter
-1 cup dark brown sugar
-1/3 granulated sugar
-2 cups flour
-2 tsp baking powder
-1 tsp baking soda
-1 tsp ground cinnamon
-1 tsp ground ginger
-1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
-1/2 tsp salt
-1/4 tsp ground black pepper
-2 eggs
-1/2 cup buttermilk mixed with 1 tsp vanilla
-1 1/4 cup canned pumpkin

1. Preheat the oven to 350F

2. Mix butter and sugars until fluffy

3. Add eggs one by one to the butter and sugar

3. Combine remaining dry ingredients in a medium bowl

4. Alternate adding buttermilk-vanilla blend with flour blend to the butter, sugar, and eggs

5. Beat in pumpkin puree

6. Pour into buttered springform pan and bake 35-40 minutes, until toothpick comes out clean

 

 

Chai Spice Buttercream Cream Cheese Frosting

 

1 stick unsalted butter

1/2 cup confectioners sugar

3 oz. cream cheese

1 tbsp. cinnamon

1/2 tbsp. nutmeg

1/2 tbsp. ground ginger

 

1. Mix butter, sugar, and cream cheese until fluffy

2. Add spices

 

 

Cut the cake in half. Spread frosting between layers, then replace top layer. Frost top and sides of cake. Decorate with cinnamon-sugar.