"I love you, pumpkin"

I was told how much I was loved often as a child. Which was great on many levels, including completely distracting me from the fact that my parents referred to me as pumpkin... a big, round, orange gourd that people gut and decorate...

And still today I am filled with warm fuzzy feelings around pumpkins.

Here's how my current cake story begins...

Once upon a time there was an amazing shop filled with gourmet dry mixes to make wonderful soups, breads, and dips. This shop, Custom Cafe Foods, has a very special item called Pumpkin Dip. One afternoon the Queen (that's me) decided that Pumpkin Dip and Pumpkin Spice Cake would make a heavenly marriage and live happily ever after...

To make the Pumpkin Dip you mix one dry mix with 80z cream cheese and 1 cup canned pumpkin (ummmmm... yum). They advertise that you can serve this dip with apple slices, ginger bread, graham crackers... but I have found that a spoon works just fine and inside a cake would be even better!

Making the Pumpkin Spice cake is just as easy; mix 1 box spice cake, 1 can pumpkin, and 3 eggs. Bake. Decorate. Eat.

So here is my Pumpkin Spice cake with Pumpkin Dip filling covered in cream cheese icing covered in slivered almonds:

I am still having major problems with my cream cheese icing. It tastes great but is way to soft... It's kind of melting off of the cake.

Nuts... drove me a little nuts. I don't know how real bakers do it, but when I was putting the nuts on the cake my youngest daughter walked in and said "WHAT are you trying to do?"... so not only did it feel awkward and wrong it apparently LOOKED awkward too.