Pumpkin Cream Cheese Snack Cake

In celebration of fall season, and my birthday week, I will be running five of my favorite pumpkin recipes this week. Please come back each day, Monday through Friday, for my latest recipe. I hope you all enjoy, and that you have a wonderful fall season!

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Snack Cake
3 Tablespoons applesauce
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup white sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup pumpkin
1/6 cup water
7/8 cup flour (half white/half wheat)*
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

Mix applesauce, salt, sugar, egg, pumpkin and water together. Sift dry ingredients together in separate bowl and then combine with wet ingredients. *I used 1/2 cup of white flour and just under 1/2 cup of wheat flour.* Spread batter into greased 8x8 pan withholding one tablespoon of batter.

Cream Cheese topping:
4 oz. cream cheese (reduced fat is fine:-)
1/8 cup sugar
1/8 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 egg**

Blend these four ingredients together until smooth. **For the 1/2 egg, I beat an egg in a separate bowl and then pour half of it into the mixture. You can also use just one small egg.** After ingredients are blended, dollop the cream cheese mixture on top of the pumpkin batter. Swirl with knife. Drop the last tablespoon of batter across the top and swirl again. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes until tester comes out clean (the cream cheese may be a little gooey).

This recipe is again a halved recipe which is why several of the measurements appear strange. The 8x8 size is perfect for a couple of days snacking, and you don't have to feel guilty about eating a HUGE pan of goodies by yourself. Enjoy!

HT: KD

Come back tomorrow (my birthday!) for a family tradition of mine, Pumpkin Cookies with Brown Sugar Glaze

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins (light version)

In celebration of fall season, and my birthday week, I will be running five of my favorite pumpkin recipes this week. Please come back each day, Monday through Friday, for my latest recipe. I hope you all enjoy, and that you have a wonderful fall season!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins
2 eggs
1/4 cup oil
1/2 cup applesauce
8 oz. canned pumpkin (approx. 1 cup, or half a can)
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 1/2 cups flour (3/4 cup white flour, 3/4 wheat flour)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1-2 teaspoons cinnamon
a dash of nutmeg and cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
6 oz semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Combine eggs, oil, applesauce and pumpkin until well blended. Stir in sugars. In a separate bowl, sift together flours, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and salt. Gradually add flour mixture to wet mixture. When combined, stir in vanilla, and then chocolate chips. Grease muffin tins or line with paper liners. Fill muffin tins 3/4 full, and place in oven. Bake for 16-18, or until tester comes out clean (make sure you avoid the chips when inserting tester:-). Makes approx. 16 muffins.

Note: You may want to add more spices or cut back on them depending upon your preference. This recipe is a halved variation on one I found on Recipezaar, so the recipe is easily doubled and makes TONS of muffins! Feel free to double it, though, because you will love these muffins and eat them quickly.

HT: Money Saving Mom

Tune in tomorrow for a recipe for Pumpkin Cream Cheese Snack Cake!

My Glade Scented Oil Tin Design

Glade Scented Oil Candles has a contest right now to design a new tin for their candles. It is a simple process using their predetermined design items and colors. I had fun playing around with my design last night. Check it out, give me your opinion, and make your own!
Check out this design entry from the "Design The Next Glade® Scented Oil Candle Tin Contest"

Fall = Apple Cider and Mulling Spices!

I love fall--the crispness in the air, the changing leaves, the need to wear long sleeved shirts and blue jeans! My husband and I call early fall "courtin' time", because we fell in love in the fall, often taking walks during the day, or sitting on front porch rocking chairs as the sun set. Wonderful memories!

One of my favorite parts of fall is the abundance of apples; they are my favorite fruit, and I cannot get enough of them! Fresh from the mountains apples are the best:-) Last Christmas I "concocted" my own recipe for mulling spices to add to apple cider. In fact, it was one of my first posts on this blog. Since apple cider is appearing everyone in stores and coffee shops, I thought I would repost my recipe for mulling spices. It definitely Works for Me (and, as an aside, it worked wonderfully as Christmas gifts last year too!).

4 cups brown sugar
3 tablespoons cinnamon
1 tablespoon ground orange peel
1 tablespoon cloves
1 tablespoon allspice
1 tablespoon nutmeg

Mix everything together, making sure that you break up the chunks of brown sugar.

Instructions for use: Add 1/2 cup of mix plus 1 cup of water to 2 cups of cider or juice. Bring to a boil and then simmer until ingredients are dissolved and all is well combined. Enjoy!
*Note: For a single serving, use 2-3 Tablespoons to 1 cup of cider*

For friends old and new :-)

Love the 90% section

At my local CVS (and mayn CVS stores, of course), there is often a bin near the checkout counter that is 75-90% off. The items displayed are not always things I want/need, but occasionally you do find good deals. This week, they had trial size bottles of Nivea Touch of Happiness/Touch of Sparkle body wash in the 90% bin. I am pretty faithful to my Aveeno body wash, but back in the spring I bought some Nivea Touch of Happiness as part of CVS couponing deal, and I love it! It is a wonderful, fresh scent that does make me happy (but I have always been easily entertained:-). The best part? They were only $0.12/bottle! I bought six bottles total, three of each type. I don't know if I will like the Touch of Sparkle, but our church is collecting trial size toiletries for an upcoming health fair, and those would be perfect. Anyway, I love the 90% bin at CVS! Make sure you check your CVS clearance bin before leaving the store.

Trio of skirts

As I mentioned in a previous blogpost, I demonstrated making a skirt from the free Oliver & S pattern here at a women's event called "Get Crafty." The bright green with pink ribbon skirt is the one I actually made during the demonstration, and the blue and cream skirt below it is what I took to display. The last skirt is one for me; I used basic instructions from Sew What! Skirts and adapted the Oliver & S pattern. I hope to post a tutorial on the "Mommy skirt" soon. Now Girl has a fun party skirt (the green) and she and I have "mommy and daughter" matching skirts.