Photo credit: Dennis Littley
It might be too late to plan for it this Thanksgiving, but you could for Christmas. Or New Year's. Any holiday. Any day. Just make it. It's that good.
And worth every dish you'll dirty and every hour in the kitchen.
The first time I made this cake, I was in the kitchen for about 4 hours, including clean up time. And I dirtied a lot! But it was oh-so-worth-it!
You can see that not only is it a FOUR layer cake, but there's a wonderful crunchy layer in between the cake layers, and between those layers is the creamiest of cream cheese frostings. The crunch is a mixture of nuts, crushed vanilla wafers and sugar. That crunch and the cream and the cake dance together for party in your mouth.
Counting calories? Forget it. You don't want to know.
Even if you think you don't like pumpkin, you'll love this cake.The pumpkin and spicy flavors are not overwhelming. Even my Mr. Rosemary -- not a pumpkin fan -- declared this the best cake I ever made.
Here's a little confession: While my husband thinks I'm a good cook, he's not as enthusiastic about my baking. There a handful of things I've learned to bake that he likes. The toughest nut to crack was a chocolate chip cookie: They have to be soft and just the right ratio of nuts and chocolate to cookie.
And he's pretty fond of my cheesecakes. Although it took a little convincing for him to like the pumpkin cheesecake.
(And I'd probably rank this pumpkin cheesecake as the second best Thanksgiving dessert)
I have to thank Dennis Littley (aka Chef Dennis) for introducing me to this cake. It made me a minor rock star in my own little circle of family and friends. For the complete recipe, please visit Chef Dennis's blog.
I first made this cake a couple years ago for my sister-in-law's birthday. Everyone loved it and even I was surprised at how good it was. I've made it a few times since then, always forhappy people. And I've even managed to cut kitchen time down to two hours.
This is the first time I've posted anything on my blog in a couple years, I'm embarrassed to say. I'm not really sure why I stopped. I started writing a bit about my breast cancer treatment and after that, it was hard to jump back into things. Writing about food didn't seem quite as important to me.
I think the biggest reason I stopped was shear laziness. I still cooked, still experimented, but I stopped taking the time to take pictures. Not to just take any old picture, but I lost the energy to make them pretty and appealing. (That's why I asked Dennis Littley if I could use his photo. Thank you!)
But I still love to write, and still love to cook, so I'll be back.
Thank you for visiting.
