One Day at a Time: Pumpkin Cinnamon-Graham Cake

On Saturday nights I attend a meeting at the church and occasionally bring a cake or cupcakes. I like to try new recipes out on the group's ~~Guinea Pigs~~ members. Tonight I made a pumpkin cake with cinnamon-graham icing, which sounds a lot fancier than it is (was, its gone). It was a big hit so this time I decided to share my recipe.

Cake

Any vanilla boxed cake mix (this is your base)

I used Duncan Hines b/c is was what I had on hand

1 cup club soda
1/3 cup vegetable oil
3 eggs
1 box pumpkin pudding mix

Mix the first 4 ingredients until well blended and then add the pudding mix. Mix again for several minutes until the texture is on the creamy side. Bake per box cake mix instructions.

Note: it usually takes longer to bake when I add pudding

Icing

Any white or butter cream icing should work, be it made from scratch or bought in a tub. The trick is to add a couple tablespoons of cocoa, (enough to give the icing a light brown color), a little cinnamon extract, and crushed up graham crackers to the icing.

Oh yea...a little trick I use when making up icing that has to wait on a cooling cake.

Put a layer of damp paper towels over the bowl.

I must admit it was not the easiest icing to ice with as it has the consistency of cookie dough. But I l-o-v-e cookie dough so it was all good.

I broke up pieces of the graham crackers for garnish and placed them on the top and bottom of the cake to give it a more polished look. And then of course I licked the bowl.