I thought I was going to have this really reat picture of a fat, sleak squirrel all ready for winter posing perfectly in the crook of a tree. At the last second, as the shutter clicked, he spun so fast that all I got was a nice shot of his butt -- and decided that wasn't one for posting. So on to the project of the day!
The day before Halloween my roommate posted me (Facebook) a link to this cake saying, "One of us needs to be making this and all of us need to be eating it!" Looking at the picture I tended to agree, but I was in the middle of this horrendous 12-day stretch at work (which I'm out to do twice more). I thought she'd beat me to it -- and she is much more the cake lady than I am -- but I was mistaken. Having reached my two days off I had two projecys in mind -- one was to work on some Christmas ornaments from Rosie Little Things and the other the Browned Butter Pumpkin Layer Cake. Sadly, two days isn't a lot to get caught up on the house, spend time with the family, and do both these things. So with my roommate providing the pepitas, pecans and candied ginger, my youngest son and I took the bus to the store and picked up the remaining necessary ingredients and got to work on the cake, leaving my beloved ornaments for another day.
For the record, this cake is every bit as moist and delicious as they promise. There are two things I would suggest doing differently. They said to double the topping recipe to pile them on like they did in their picture, and it was far too much. Fifty percent more would have been perfect, whereas in stead I was trying to figure out what to do with the rest, sticking pecans around the side (and being half asleep by this point I didn't do the most artistic job - oops) and scooping the rest around the base of the cake on the stand. It didn't hurt the taste, obviously. Also, there is no way their frosting recipe was used as is for the cake in the picture. I'd make at least half again of that, possibly even double to really make it look like theirs.
Brown butter is melted and heated till it turns a nutty color. You let it sit on the counter in a bowl for a bit to let any solids drop, then stick it in the freezer and let it harden. After that, you turn it out and scrape off the solids from the base (the dog loved the treat!) and then it's ready to use.
The topping as shown is doubled; as I wrote above I would only increase it by 50% the next time I make it (and I will - I'm not really a cake person but this was really good).
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