Lana Robison PhotographyScrumptious Pumpkin Spice Cake with Maple Browned Butter Cream Cheese Frosting
Everyone who tasted this scrumdiliumcious frosting loved it. Most just wanted to eat it with a spoon – forget the cake! It was originally a recipe for Browned Butter-Cinnamon-Cream Cheese Frosting in the December issue of Southern Living, but I changed it up a little. I omitted the cinnamon, added maple flavoring and pecans, and put it on a Pumpkin Spice Cake. Here’s the recipes:
Pumpkin Spice Cake (Used Duncan Hines cake mix)
1 box Duncan Hines Spice Cake Mix
3 eggs
1 & 1/4 cups water
2 tablespoons oil
1 can pumpkin
Preheat oven to 325˚F. Grease and flour cake pans (I used 3 9″ pans and sprayed with Pam). Mix according to directions of back of package. Pour into pans and bake according to box directions (for 3 9″ pans I baked them for 20-25 minutes). Remove from oven when toothpick inserted into middle of cakes come out clean. Place pans on wire racks for about 5 minutes, then remove from pans and continue to cool on racks until completely cooled.
Tip & Trick:If your cake tops aren’t level, take a serrated knife and level by cutting off the tops.
To assemble: spread a small amount of frosting on cake plate, then place one cake layer top side down on plate. Spread frosting on first layer and place second layer top side down on it. Spread that layer with frosting and place the third layer top side down on top. (This way you are always spreading frosting on the bottom side of the cakes.) Finish by spreading the remaining frosting on the side and top of the cake (you may have some frosting left over).
Maple Browned Butter Cream Cheese Frosting (adapted from Southern Living)
1/2 cup butter
2 80z packages cream cheese, softened
2 boxes powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 teaspoons maple flavoring
1/2-1 cup finely chopped pecans
Cook butter in a small heavy saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly, 6 to 8 minutes or until butter begins to turn golden brown. Immediately remove from heat. Pour butter into a bowl. Cover and chill 1 hour or until butter is cool and begins to solidify. Beat butter and cream cheese at medium speed with an electric mixer until creamy; gradually add powdered sugar, beating until light and fluffy. Stir in maple flavoring, vanilla and pecans.
Tip & Trick: To make frosting smooth, run hot water over metal spatula or spreading knife and start smoothing frosting. Continue heating knife and running it around the outside and top of cake until desired smoothness is reached.
As you can see I missed the “tip & trick” for smooth frosting on this cake, but it was still extremely tasty!
Lana Robison Photography 
Thanks for sharing your yummy recipes! I bet they’ll work in at Christmas just fine! The pictures are awesome.