However, tooling around on the internet, I found this, and was intrigued. She lays out a simple two-ingredient cake. I know, generally I'm dead-set against boxed mixes, but right now I don't have money to make food, so a baked good on the cheap cheap is better than none at all. It hurt me a little to do it, believe me. However, the woman who wrote that post lives in a world where Martinelli's Gold Medal 100% Pure Cider isn't an unachievable luxury. Not to even mention a stand mixer. I fantasize about stand mixers in the way men are supposed to fantasize about threesomes with hot blonde twins. So I decided to take this sucker one step further and make a two dollar cake.
I ran on down to my local 99Cents Only Store and grabbed the least gross looking can of pumpkin and a box of seemingly unbranded spice cake mix ("Country Value" indeed). The directions are simple, plop and mix.
I separated my cake out into two pans (everything here in LA is Corning) in the name of being classy. You can do that how you like. I threw them into a 350 degree oven for around twenty-three minutes.
I didn't have a toothpick to check for doneness with, so I used a chopstick. Such is the life of those who care not about appearances. I took the cakes right out of the oven and stacked them onto a much nicer plate than my cake deserved, neglected to frost or ice or glaze in any way, cut out a slice and ate it.
On an aside, that's my favorite fork in LA, right there, which, if you know me at all, is weird. I'm normally a pretty die hard three-tine man, but that guy right there just has such a beautiful heft to it.
The cake is pretty solid. Great for two dollars. There's lots of room for improvement, though. Ken (my roommate here) was eating it with butter on it and suggested putting a can of corn and some cayenne pepper in it.
So here, after a brief moment of thought (that's a lie, I'm totally making this up as I type it) is a totally untested recipe based on the fact that pumpkin is the new banana and still one of my favorite things in the world:
Jim's As-Yet Untried Ultimate Thanksgiving-Style Pumpkin Dinner Muffins (YES!)
(also, if you do this, you should tweak it)
(also also, this is vegan)
You will need:
one can of pumpkin
2 1/2 cups of white(ish) flour
1/2 cup of cornmeal
maybe a palmful of arrowroot or cornstarch or something
one stick of margarine (or whatever you prefer)
one and a half tablespoons of baking soda (I use Rumsford because there's no Aluminum in it)
1 tablespoon of vanilla (good stuff)
1/2 cup maple syrup
also 1/4 to 1/2 cup of dark brown sugar (if not, serve with honey, which might actually be the better option)
1/2 cup of corn kernels if you want (I don't usually dig on that)
1 or 2 chopped up jalapenos (only if there're corn kernels, I think)
sure, some cayenne
maybe 1/2 a teaspoon each of nutmeg, clove, and allspice
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
That seems good, right? Mix that stuff the way you know it wants to be mixed: the dries, add butter, mix in the wets, mess it all up with a fork. Then I'd put it into some buttered (or paper cupped) muffin tins, but I'd keep it pretty low. You don't want big old muffin sized dinner rolls. You want little graceful delicious pumpkin doobers. Bake them at 350, check at like fifteen, and then every few after that.
Probably all of you with stocked kitchens should get on that and tell me how it goes. Tell me your variations and how they came out.
Much love.
I didn't listen to anything while I was baking this because I'm not set up to do so here. Sad.
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