Burning Down the House

Well my morning started bright and early compliments of my alarm clock (pictured below)

I thought perhaps I would make a cake to take to Grant Street tomorrow (now I'm not sure if I'm going or not - now what am I going to do with this cake?)

What to make?

I wanted something pumpkin so I decided to "create".  My Mom has a recipe for a Sour Cream Pound cake that is always good and everyone loves it so I thought let me tweak that and make a Pumpkin Pound cake.

Here is the recipe for the original Sour Cream Pound cake:

2 sticks butter (1 cup)

1/4 tsp. baking soda

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

6 whole eggs

3 cups sugar

1/2 tsp lemon extract 

1 cup sour cream

3 cups flour

Cream butter - gradually beat in sugar.  Beat in baking soda, vanilla and lemon extract.  Beat in eggs two at a time.  Add flour a cup at a time.  Beat well.

Pour batter into a greased 10" tube pan (or bundt pan would work).  Bake in preheated oven 325 degrees for approx. 1 1/2 hours to 1 1 3/4.

Now my tweaks (oh and these are pretty approx. - I'm an eyeballer!)

I left out the lemon extract

I used about 2 tbsp vanilla

I added a pinch of cinnamon

Instead of 1 cup sour cream I used about 1/4 cup

I added about 10 ounces of canned pumpkin

I now wish I would have added some nutmeg and cloves (forgot that!)

After I baked them I decided I wanted to make a light glaze so I just cooked a little milk, a little butter and some confectioner's sugar with a splash of vanilla and a dump of cinnamon and poured over cakes (Oh i made two- above is for one)

What I didn't mention above is I thought I would toast up some walnuts with cinnamon and a spray of butter and add that to the glaze.  Well here's what happened to my walnuts!

Yep the smoke detector was going off, smoke was in kitchen and an awful smell!   I forgot about them in the toaster oven!  That was the last my walnuts too - So I just laughed at myself and opened the doors and waved out the smoke - Why get bent out of shape! LOL

While I was in the kitchen Mr. Riley was sunbathing - I see he got his basket down from on top of the hutch and placed it smack in the middle of a sunbeam.  Smart boy! 

Here's a pic of Miles from this afternoon - as you can see he is extremely scrawny. And yes we feed him, as much as he wants - we have done everything possible and he doesn't seem to be suffering so as I said in a previous post - we give him all the love we can.

Hope you all had a wonderful day!