Felix is two months old today. He smiles and goos and props up nicely in the corner of the couch. Last week, he outgrew the feet in his six month pajamas, and this week he can't quite straighten his legs in them. He's holding his neck up pretty well, and he loves to eat. Right now he's taking a nap.
I don't think there will be cake today. Desmond begs to differ, but I think that maybe at best we can come up with some pie. I'm ready for pie. If you're looking for a traditional custardy pumpkin number, then Nonna has your recipe. And if you need something quick, incidentally lower in fat, more of a Wednesday night pie, then you'll want Susan V's crustless version. Either one tastes like Thanksgiving, and I would like to eat them both right now.
I am done with cake. We made something like 600,000 cupcakes for Desmond's birthday two weeks ago. There was the birthday party, and the pre-school celebration, and then our pal, Linus, went and turned two weeks old - requiring, of course, more cake. I went with the toddler-friendly mini version which resulted in incredible numbers of tiny cakes. I'm full-sizing it from here on out. There were millions of little chocolate cakes coated in ganache and moist, lightly spiced, pumpkin cakes with cream cheese frosting.
Here is an updated version of the recipe that I posted two years ago for Desmond's first birthday. I'm leaving the original alone in case you're looking for a baby-friendly, lightly sweet, pumpkin-heavy, very first cake. We've graduated to something just ever so slightly sweeter that doesn't call for an annoying fraction of a can of pumpkin (Not a problem when there is a one-year-old in the house, he'll polish it off. That can of organic pureed pumpkin is my very favorite baby convenience food, by the way. But thank goodness we're not quite ready for it yet. We have a few more minutes of squishy, blobby baby time. I love it.).
Pumpkin Cupcakes
Yield: 24 cupcakes (or a ton of tiny ones)
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 cup white whole wheat flour (or whole wheat pastry flour, or more all-purpose, do not use regular whole wheat flour)
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 15-ounce can pumpkin
- 1/2 cup oil
- 1 1/4 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup soymilk
- 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
Heat the oven to 350 and line 2 muffin pans with cupcake liners. Add the apple cider vinegar to the the soymilk and set aside to curdle. In a large bowl, stir together the wet ingredients (the pumpkin through vanilla, including the now thickened soy milk and vinegar mixture). Sift the dry ingredients into the wet, and stir with a fork until combined. Scoop (I like to use a pan spray-slicked ice cream scoop full, or about 1/4 cup, or about 2/3 of the way up the cupcake wrapper.) into the prepared pan and bake for 22 minutes. Let cool and spread with your favorite frosting (I like cream cheese.).
