Forgive me if I’m not quite ready to move on to Christmas.  I’d like to savor Thanksgiving a little bit longer.  I’ll be ready to start anticipating Christmas on Sunday, the official start of the Advent season.  But, for the next few days, I’m going to keep my Thanksgiving placemats on my harvest green tablecloth.  I’m going to keep the gel cling turkey that’s missing more than a few body parts (thanks to some little 4-year-old hands) stuck to my kitchen window.  And, I’m going to make a few more pumpkin-related recipes before I move on to more traditional Christmas things. 

I love, love, love Pumpkin Pie.  I could eat it any month of the year, with or in place of any meal!  But, we don’t have Pumpkin Pie on Thanksgiving any more. And that’s fine with me, really.  Because we have Pumpkin Gooey Butter Cake in its place.  This is a Paula Deen recipe that I discovered the year that Abigail was born.  I was sitting in our glider rocker at 4:00 a.m. nursing my newborn and there was Paula throwing together cream cheese, pumpkin, butter (lots of butter), and a yellow cake mix.  It looked delicious and to my sleep-deprived brain, easy to make.  So, I tried it that year.  We had it for Thanksgiving and Christmas and every Thanksgiving and Christmas since.  My sister has made it with different fruit variations (cherry and lemon, I think).  It is always a hit and whenever I take it somewhere new, someone asks for the recipe.  So, here it is:

Paula Deen’s Pumpkin Gooey Butter Cake

Cake:

1 package yellow cake mix (I use Duncan Hines Classic Yellow)

1 egg

1/2 cup of butter, melted

Filling:

1 8 oz. package of cream cheese, softened

1 (15 oz. can of pumpkin)

3 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup butter, melted

16 oz. of powdered sugar (I could only find 32 oz. size bags so I just lay it flat on a cutting board and cut through the middle with my kitchen shears; maybe not exactly precise but a whole lot easier than trying to measure out powdered sugar)

1 teaspoon of cinnamon

1 teaspoon of nutmeg

Mix together the cake mix, egg, and butter with an electric mixture.  Press the mixture into the bottom of a greased 9X13 pan.

Next, beat the cream cheese and pumpkin with an electric mixer until they’re smooth.  Add the eggs, vanilla, and butter.  Beat all that together.  Add the powdered sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg and mix well.    Spread the pumpkin mixture over the cake batter.  Bake for 40-50 minutes in a 350 degree oven. 

Okay, here’s the iffy part.  You don’t want to over-bake it because, you want it to still be gooey.  But, you do want it to have some shape to it, so don’t under-bake it either.  I usually bake mine until, when I pull the pan out of the oven, the top has a little bit of wiggle to it but not a lot.  And, if you’re not a fan of nutmeg, you can half the amount you use.  I did that yesterday (completely by accident, because I love nutmeg…if I could have a romance with a spice, it would surely be nutmeg) and it was still delicious!

Enjoy!