#1. I am in no way a food photographer. I know next to nothing about food styling (as you'll see in the pictures below) - this is my first haphazard attempt at the "step by step" recipe picture thing and let me tell you...it was chaotic at best. So bear with me!
#2. You know how most people are either a good cook or a good baker, but very rarely will you find a person who is good at both? I am not a baker. You do the math.
#3. This was an experiment - I'm sure there are a million ways to improve upon this, and I hope you let me know how you fared in your comments if you try this recipe!
You will need:
1 13x9 baking pan
1 box of spice cake mix
3 little cups of applesauce (see picture)
1 can pumpkin
pumpkin pie spice
nonstick spray
water
Spray the baking pan with the nonstick spray so that it is nicely coated - there is no fat (oil, butter, etc) in the cake, so you want to make sure this bad boy doesn't stick. Next, combine the can of pumpkin and the applesauce in a bowl and mix well. I used 3 of the little cups of applesauce, but you could probably just use 2 of them. I chose cinnamon applesauce because I wanted this to bring some spice along with it. Next, add 1 teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice to the pumpkin/applesauce and mix well so that it's combined throughout. After that, gradually add a bit of the cake mix at a time, making sure that everything is mixed in well before you add more. You may need to add a bit of water to the batter at this point as it will be thick - I didn't add more than 1/4 cup of water when making this.
*Sidenote - this was my first time using a Kitchenaid mixer and I have two words: life changing!
Next, pour the batter (it will be on the thick side) into your baking pan.
Bake at 350 for 33-35 minutes.
The cake is going to come out looking cracky and not very pretty, mostly because of the density I'm sure. Don't judge a book by it's cover here, folks! There is a lot of goodness in this not so cute little cake!
Okay, so here is what I learned - while the temptation to immediately dig in is immense, let the cake sit and cool. This was SO MUCH BETTER on the second day. The flavors really combine together, and the bottom of the bar becomes even more dense, so that it's cakey on top, but incredibly moist on the bottom (almost like the texture of a really rich brownie. Except, you know, it's pumpkin).
Let me know if you guys find any other delightful variations, or something that works better...
PS - if you put some butter on top and stick it in the microwave for a few seconds, it makes a really delectable breakfast. :)
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