The Great Pumpkin Cake Recipe

I made this Great Pumpkin Cake for my daughter's birthday. I thought it turned out really cute, don't you? You can find pictorial step-by-step instructions at www.bakerette.com/the-great-pumpkin-cake/. It was pretty easy.

• Ready In: 55 mins
• Serves: 12-15
• Yields: 1 cake

Ingredients

• 2 (15 1/4ounce) boxes  chocolate cake mix (or cake of your choice)
• 2 (12 ounce) containers cream cheese or 2 (12 ounce) containers  vanilla frosting, made orange
•  orange food coloring (I used red and yellow gel coloring to make orange)
•  ready-to-use  green decorating icing

Directions

1. Bake two bundt cakes in fluted cake pans per the cake mix instructions. Let cool.
2. In the meantime, empty the frosting into a medium-sized bowl and add the food coloring according to your desired intensity of color.
3. Remove one cake from the pan and turn it upside down on a large platter. With a bread cutting knife, slowly take off a thin layer of the top end of the cake to make the end flat. Do the same for the second cake.
4. Take small strips of foil and place it around the bottom of the cake; butting it right up to the cake. This will protect the platter from getting dirty while you’re spreading the frosting.
5. With a knife or spatula, spread a layer of orange frosting to the flat end of the cake that is turned upside down on the platter.
6. Take the second cake and turn it upright and place on top of the cake on the platter making sure that the grooves in the cakes match up with each other.
7. Begin spreading the orange frosting around the ring between where the cakes meet to fill in the gap.
8. Apply remaining frosting to the rest of the cake spreading it in an up and down fashion so you give the illusion of the lines you see in pumpkins. Make sure that you also cover inside the hole of the cake in the same way; at least half way down in the hole.
9. Carefully remove the foil from cake platter.
10. Now that your cake looks like a pumpkin, take the decorator’s icing and with the straight piping cap, create swirls of vines around the pumpkin; then change out the cap and put on the leaf cap and place leaves where you desire on the vines.
11. Now step back and admire your work of art!