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Now that Autumn is upon us and the dark nights are drawing in, one of our favorite things to do as a family is curl up on the sofa together for movie nights!
Considering my children are only 6, 4 and 3 they have surprisingly good attention spans when it comes to movies - and, probably partly due to being raised by a movie buff mother!, they have pretty decent taste in films too!
Even though it's still a little while until Halloween we're already well in the mood in this house, having watched Hocus Pocus, The Nightmare Before Christmas and Disney's Haunted Mansion numerous times in the last few weeks.
As movie nights are something that we love to enjoy as a family. I wanted to come up with some nice seasonal treats for us to enjoy together - our movies night snacks usually consist of the usual suspects such as popcorn and chocolate but I thought it'd be nice to make the effort to do some home-baked treats instead.
And what could be more fitting for the season than a Pumpkin Spice Cake?!
I am a HUGE fan of anything Pumpkin Spiced at this time of year, but I wasn't too sure how the kids would take to it so I decided to make a very mildly spiced cake to begin with to test the waters - luckily they all absolutely loved it, so next time I'm going to be doubling up on the spices I used - if you fancy trying this recipe and you want it be quite strong-tasting then consider doubling up on the spices I used.
Making this cake gave me the perfect chance to try out my new Cucina 4 Litre Stand Mixer from Studio - as well as looking gorgeous in my kitchen (Don't you think it's a great Kitchen Aid dupe?!), it is also incredibly easy to use and has really made baking so much easier.
Due to my health problems I can often find mixing by hand to be a real problem, often resulting in a lot of pain afterwards but this mixer made it all so much more manageable for me.
It came with dough hook and flat beater attachments, and has a 6-speed setting including a Pulse option as well as a detachable splash guard.
So...on to the recipe!
Pumpkin Spice Cake Ingredients:
1 Cup Of Softened Butter
2 and a half cups of All Purpose Flour
1 Tsp of Baking Soda
2 Tsp of Cinnamon
1 Tsp Ground Nutmeg
1 Tsp Ground Ginger
1/2 Tsp Salt
425g Tin Pumpkin Puree
3/4 Cup of Buttermilk
1 Tsp Vanilla Extract
1 and a quarter cups of Granulated Sugar
3 Eggs
For The Glaze:
4 Oz Of Cream Cheese
1/2 Tsp Vanilla Extract
1 Cup Of Icing Sugar
Dash of Milk if needed
To begin with, preheat oven to 250 degrees and grease a loaf tin.
Then in a large bowl mix pumpkin puree, buttermilk and 1 tsp of Vanilla extract until combined.
In a separate bowl mix your flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and a pinch of salt.
Then add your buttar and granulated sugar to the mixing bowl, and and beat together until fluffy (About 2 minutes). Then add 3 eggs, and mix again on a Medium speed until combined.
Then - a bit at a time - add your flour and pumpkin mixtures. Begin with your flour mixture, add about a quarter of the mix and beat together. Then add a quarter of the pumpkin mix and beat again.
Continue until all has been added, finishing with the flour mixture. Mix until the batter is smooth.
Transfer the batter to the loaf tin, and bake for around 40 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Then allow to cool completely.
While cake is cooling, prepare your cream cheese glaze by mixing cream cheese, icing sugar and vanilla extract with the electric mixer - if it's too thick, add a splash of milk and mix again. If it becomes too runny, add a little more icing sugar.
Once you have your desired consistency, pour over the cooled cake.
As well as a Pumpkin Spice Cake, I decided to make something that I knew without doubt that the children would love.
My kids love to watch American families on YouTube and had been asking me about S'Mores...which are traditionally made over campfires using Graham Crackers, chocolate squares and Marshmallows.
I thought a S'Mores dip would be a great variation on this - so I broke up 2 bars of cooking chocolate and melted them over a low heat in a saucepan along with a handful of mini marshmallows and a couple of splashes of milk, until the chocolate was smooth.
I then poured the chocolate mixture into an oven proof dish, and topped with mini marshmallows - popped it under the grill to toast, and then served it with Digestive biscuits for dipping.
It went down an absolute treat with the kids!
So there you have it - Our Seasonal Autumn Movie Snacks! I served them up on my new Star Serving Dishes from Studio which I just love and will be getting a lot of use out of over the Festive period.
They made for the perfect accompaniment to an afternoon spent cuddling up under our favorite snuggly blanket together.
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