Thanksgiving Baking

This morning, with the carpets drying from the Rug Doctor last night (oh, how clean they look!), I set out to bake my Thanksgiving goodies.  The rolls and sweet potatoes will have to wait for tomorrow but today I did my Pumpkin Spice Cake and my Pumpkin Pie

I made the crust last night.  I bake my pies in my 9.5 inch Pyrex pans.  My mom says her pie crust was always better in glass plus if you make your crust ahead of time and freeze it, the Pyrex can go straight from the freezer to your oven without a problem.  I make the crust from scratch.  I recommend the Crisco sticks and they make measure the shortening much easier.  No butter in my crust, just Crisco, salt, flour and water.

Then I got the rest of the ingredients together.  The sugar was in the cabinet.  I've gone Alton and went strictly Kosher salt.  Yes, I do used canned pumpkin because stewing your own just seems to be too much work.  I did that one year.  Never again.  Libby's works fine for me.

Here it is ready for baking.

And poppin fresh from the oven.  Don't it look good?

The pumpkin pie was my mother's recipe but the pumpkin cake I got from here.  I've never made it before.  I made my own pumpkin pie spice with her recipe (it's in the bowl).

She calls for Safflower oil by name but I discovered it this summer.  It's excellent to bake with as it has almost no taste.  And it will take higher heats.  I would have used it anyway.  And it's not terribly terribly expensive (definitely more than canola but so much healthier).

The cake called for a yellow cake mix.  The baker is from England and they really don't do box mixes so she got herself a Betty Crocker carrot cake mix.  I used this but omitted the carrot/raisin packet.

And a tip for people with brown sugar.  I store it in a Tupperware container.  My mother did as well.  Never got hard and clumpy EVER!  Accept no substitutes.

And it's ready to bake.

And mostly done.  I'm just waiting for it to cool so I can pour the topping over it.  Yum!