A pretty little pumpkin ~

Autumn is my favorite time of the year!  I love to decorate with the various sizes of pumpkins.  I really enjoy the creams and the suttle orange pumpkins.  The distressed look the better I like them.  Here I'm sharing with you how you can take a simple candle holder, add some spanish moss and put a pumpkin on top!  Doesn't this look chic?!

An elegant pumpkin cake ~

I absolutely love the autumn season.  The cooler days and evenings make it perfect for warm cozy blankets and sweaters, apple cider and comfort foods.  Speaking of food here's an adorable pumpkin cake that I've made ~ it looks exactly like a real pumpkin and boy it is ever delicious!  Well I'm experiencing problems with downloading an image of this pumpkin cake so stay tuned for an image. In the meantime ~

I bake mine in a bundt cake pan to give it the share of a pumpkin.  You will need to bake two cakes - one that is larger in height than the other so that you can use the larger portion for the bottom and the smaller for the top.  For the stem I used a piece of bark out of a bag of potpourri that I had laying around the house.  I wrapped the stem in aluminum foil and twisted it so that it came to a point.  Then, I stuck the sharp point into the cake - now how smart is that?!!

After the two layers cooled completely turn the cake upside down on a plate which will now be your bottom layer.  In a bowl mix cream cheese frosting, canned pumpkin, cinnamon and pumpkin spice.  Stir until the pumpkin is thoroughly mixed.  The frosting color should be a pumpkin color.

Next, frost the top of the layer with a generous portion of frosting.  Add a little bit of pumpkin spice and then take the other layer and place on top so it looks like a lid!  Hint:  You can add some coconut pecan frosting on top of the pumpkin frosting for extra flavor and y'all this is so YUMMY!!!

Now frost the entire cake and purposely let some of the cake show through the frosting - in other words don't frost it very heavily - you want it to look natural like a real pumpkin. 

Last, stick the stem in the upper part of the center of the cake.  Then, I can never just frost a cake without blinging it a bit!  I first cut out a piece of wax paper in a circular shape and placed it slightly off center at the top of the cake next to theh stem. I then placed a beautiful silk flower on top of the wax paper.  The wax paper keeps your flower clean. 

This cake is so much fun to make and I hope I've inspired you to make one too.  I will admit that as of today I've made 5 of these cakes in the last 3 weeks!!