If I Knew You Were Coming, I'd Have Baked A Cake

 I am getting my contributions to the big meal on Wednesday today. I was talking to my sister-in-law yesterday and she wondered how one managed to bake in my tiny kitchen. She has seen it, so she knows how tight it is.

So, I decided to detail my adventures of the day. I am baking a Gingerbread Pumpkin cake with Rum Sauce. Not your traditional dessert for Thanksgiving, but HeWho loves to eat is not a fan of Pumpkin Pie. He will say that he does not like the flavor of pumpkin. So, of course, I have made it my life's mission to prove him wrong. He is well known for disdaining certain foods and saying he has never, and will never, eat them. Poor guy has eaten so many things he has on that list and doesn't even know it.

I woke this morning and sipped coffee as I wandered through Facebook and contemplated my world. I try to be on the quiet side while my husband gets his beauty sleep. Not that it matters, he sleeps without hearing aides. As soon as he got up, though, I got to work. First I changed the bed sheets and got the washer going, then I tackled the kitchen and made sure that everything was clean and clear.

Not having adequate counter space is an ongoing dilemma, but I can make do. I grabbed my trusty kitchen stool and climbed up to retrieve the bundt pan I wanted to use. I have more than one, as over the years one tends to collect lots and lots of cookware. I did part with many things before the major downsize, but bakeware was not among the many things I parted with. This means that I have a lot of things stored high up. I am short, but I have my trusty two-step ladder to adjust my reach to higher levels.

HeWho loves me and knows me well presented me with a vanilla iced coffee to suck on while I worked, then he wisely moved out of my way. Him and the dogs. I gathered all the spices and such from the pantry conviently located in the hall across from the bathroom and dumped them on the cleaned off counter. The counter being bare resulted in the table being full.

I measured and sifted and whisked dry ingredients in one bowl and wet in another. This recipe does not call for the mixer, in fact says NOT to overmix, but to gently fold the dry and wet ingredients together before putting into the pan. While the butter melted I greased the bundt pan to a fair-thee-well as I want the cake to be eye candy before it is plated to eat. My oven hates me. I bought an oven thermometer and have determined that it cooks 25 degrees higher than the setting. Another thing about this oven, it does not alert you when it has heated up, so preheating necessitates the use of that thermometer. As much as I like cooking with gas on the stove top, I am not a fan of the gas oven.

When we hire that contractor to close in the screened porch and add 300 square feet to my measly 350 square feet, and re-do the kitchen, there will be an electric oven and gas cook top in my future! But I digress.

The oven reached 350 degrees and the cake slid in to bake for 55 minutes. All the things I used are now clean and put away. The dried sheets are folded and put away (the oven will heat up by 30 degrees in the time it takes to fold sheets and put them away .... a little trivia gift for the day). Oh, almost forgot, but I took the iron skillets that I store in the oven out before I turned it on. I have forgotten this in the past and tried to grab them barehanded after remembering. I do not recommend this.

With only 18 minutes remaining on the timer, it is time to make the rum sauce and my entire house, all 350 square feet smells delicious! All my companions are napping now, so nobody will bother me when I take the cake from the oven! Oh, who am I kidding, they will wake as soon as I open that oven!

Food Lust People Love: Spiked Pumpkin Gingerbread Bundt #BundtBakers

Follow this link to get the recipe.