Peanut Butter and Milk Chocolate Brownies

Peanut Butter and Milk Chocolate Brownies - first made July 3, 2007 from Fearless Baking by Elinor Klivans

This brownie has been described as an inside out peanut butter cup. I think it’s even better than that. You make the peanut butter brownie batter, spread half in the bottom of the baking pan, sprinkle a layer of milk chocolate over it then top that with the remaining batter to cover the milk chocolate completely. When it’s baked, you literally have a layer of chocolate between two peanut butter layers. The original recipe calls for chopped up milk chocolate to be sprinkled over the bottom layer and that's what I did with my first attempt, pictured here. Now I buy the plain Hershey chocolate bars (the regular size, not the minis or the thick, king-size bars) and fit them like puzzle pieces over the bottom peanut butter brownie layer to make a near-solid layer of chocolate. Once you bake them, cool and cut them, you have a nice even milk chocolate layer in the middle as opposed to the erratic chunks of chopped up chocolate. Plus, it’s less time-consuming to go with the whole chocolate bars.

When I first made this recipe, I had a taste test piece like I always do. Usually when I try a new recipe, I’ll have one piece, judge it, make notes about how the recipe turned out and whether I would change anything then I don’t eat anymore and instead take the rest into work. With this recipe, I enjoyed it so much, I’m sorry to say I think I ate 3 pieces. Oink.

1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ pound (1 stick) soft unsalted butter
1 cup smooth peanut butter, room temperature
½ cup packed light brown sugar
¾ cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
6 ounces milk chocolate, such as Lindt or Dove Bar, broken into about ½” pieces

9” square baking pan

1. Position a rack in the middle of the oven. Preheat the oven to 325˚F. Butter the bottom and sides of a 9 x 9 x 2” or 11 x 7 x 2” baking pan.
2. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt onto a piece of wax paper or into a small bowl and set aside.
3. Put the butter and peanut butter in a large bowl and stir with a large spoon until they are blended together. You may see a few specks of butter. Stir in the brown sugar and granulated sugar, mixing until they are incorporated and there is no loose sugar. Stirring vigorously, beat in the eggs and vanilla until the mixture looks smooth. Add the flour mixture and stir just until it is incorporated and there is no loose flour. Spread about two thirds of the batter into the pan, spreading it evenly with a thin metal spatula or a nonsharp table knife. Scatter the milk chocolate pieces evenly over the batter. Drop spoonfuls of the remaining batter over the milk chocolate, using a rubber spatula to scrape all of the batter from the bowl. Use a thin metal spatula or the table knife to spread the batter evenly over the chocolate. The chocolate will be covered, but may show through the batter.
4. Bake for about 35 minutes until the top feels firm when gently touched and the edges are light brown. Inserting a toothpick as a test doesn’t work because the warm milk chocolate clings to the toothpick. Cool the brownies thoroughly in the pan for about 1 hour. Cut the brownies into pieces and use a thin metal spatula to remove them from the pan. Wrap individual brownies in plastic wrap and store at room temperature up to 3 days. Wrapped brownies are ready to pack in lunch boxes or picnic baskets. These brownies can be served with a scoop of chocolate or peanut butter fudge ice cream.
5. Individual brownies can be wrapped in plastic wrap then heavy aluminum foil and stored in the freezer for up to 3 months. Defrost the wrapped brownies as needed.

Hot Milk Cake

Grandma Lilly's Hot Milk Cake - October 11, 2009

(I may seem like I'm going out of chronological order with the postings but I baked this cake on October 11 then froze it and brought it into work today.)

The name of this recipe is Grandma Lilly’s Hot Milk Cake and is from the Treasury of Country Baking by Lisa Yockelson. I had blogged earlier about her Best Vanilla Pound Cake recipe being one of my favorite pound cake recipes for its simplicity and taste. What makes this particular recipe unusual is the way it’s made. I’ve never boiled milk and butter then added it to the batter but it does make for a smooth, shiny batter. Follow the instructions exactly so you get the result the author intends you to get. It was easy to make and for the most part, I liked it. Texture-wise, it felt like a cake that couldn’t make up its mind to be a light pound cake or a dense sponge cake. There were elements of both which is a bit unusual. Taste-wise it was similar to the Best Vanilla Pound Cake so I liked it but if I had to make a vanilla cake, I’d probably go with the true pound cake recipe.

Grandma Lilly's Hot Milk Cake

½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 cup milk
2 cups unsifted cake flour
¼ teaspoon salt
4 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
2 cups granulated sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking powder
Confectioners’ sugar for dusting, optional

1. Lightly butter and flour a plain 9” tube pan. (Do not use a tube pan with a removable bottom; the cake batter will seep out.) Set aside. Preheat the oven to 350˚F.
2. Place the butter and milk in a large saucepan and bring to the boil over moderate heat. Sift the cake flour with the salt onto a large sheet of waxed paper. Beat the eggs in the large bowl of an electric mixer on moderately high speed for 2 to 3 minutes. With the mixer on moderate speed, beat in the sugar in 3 additions, beating well after each portion is added. With the mixer on low speed, blend in the vanilla. Beat in the flour in 2 additions. When the butter and milk mixture has reached a full, rolling boil, remove it from the heat and pour it into the flour mixture as it revolves in the mixture. The beaters must be turning and the bowl moving while the milk is being added. Scrape down the sides of the mixing bowl to make an even-textured batter. Lastly, add the baking powder and beat for 1 minute at moderate speed. Quickly pour and scrape the batter into the prepared pan.
3. Bake the cake on the lower-third level rack of the preheated oven for 1 hour, or until nicely risen and golden on top; a wooden pick inserted into the center of the cake should come out clean and dry.
4. Let cool in the pan on a wire rack for 5 to 6 minutes, then invert onto a second cooling rack. Invert again to cool right side up. Dust the top of the cake with sifted confectioners’ sugar, if you like.
5. Serve the cake cut in medium thick slices.

Chocolate Brownies with Cream Cheese Icing

Chocolate Brownies with Cream Cheese Icing - October 13, 2009

There are many brownie recipes out there and I feel like I’ve tried them all or at least most of the variations. Most people have pretty strong preferences for their brownies and I’m no exception. A “good” brownie is moist, fudgy, chocolatey, and nutless (unless they’re on top and caramelized in some fashion). I don’t like cakey brownies and dry brownies aren’t worth a tooth mark in them.

I had high hopes for this recipe from Magnolia Bakery because when I was in New York , I had a fantastic brownie from Magnolia. It was moist, fudgy and covered with a white chocolate layer sprinkled with nuts on top. I’m not excessively fond of white chocolate but it worked as a great contrast to the fudgy “true” chocolate of the brownie itself. This is a different brownie since it’s covered with cream cheese frosting instead of white chocolate but I figured Magnolia would know how to make good brownies and have good brownie recipes. Hmmm. There may be an exception to every rule. My first hesitation with this recipe was when I saw cake flour being used instead of all-purpose flour. Cake flour is great when you want soft or light-textured cakes. In a brownie? For the kind of texture I like in my brownies, maybe not. But I’ll try any new recipe at least once and will give it a fair shake. I’m an equal opportunity baker after all.

The second off-putting aspect of this recipe was the size of pan it required. Most brownies are made in a 9 x 13 pan at the largest. This called for a 12 x 18 jelly roll pan. They mean serious volume with this brownie. Conceivably, I could have cut the recipe in half and adjusted the pan size but to be truly accurate with the recipe, I would’ve needed a 6” x 9” pan or a pan that totaled to 54” in its dimensions. I don’t have such a pan so I decided to make the recipe as is. I had a bunch of meetings the next day and coworkers I could give it to anyway so I figured none of the brownies would go to waste. But I did “cheat” anyway and baked the brownies in a 9 x 13 pan and an 8” square pan, eyeballing the amount of batter I spread in each pan so they’d each have the same level of thickness. I also cut the frosting in half since I only had 8 ounces of cream cheese on hand, not the full pound the frosting recipe called for. I had mocha frosting left over from the devil’s food cake recipe I’d made the night before so I used that to frost the 8” pan and used the cream cheese frosting for the 9 x 13” pan.

So how’d they turn out? I can’t say I’d give them a glowing review. The texture was kind of funny to me – not the typical denseness of my preferred fudgy brownie but it was both dense and light at the same time, more like a cross between a flourless chocolate cake and a cakey brownie. Kinda weird. Of course, it could also be due to the fact that I’ve been baking (and eating) a lot of sweets lately and I’m getting pretty jaded. If it isn’t absolutely fabulous, then it’s just “okay” to me. To other people, it was great. I had people fighting over the ones I handed out today and I got several emails and IMs thanking me and telling me they liked it. But I’m my own worst critic on many things, including what I bake. This recipe didn’t pass muster with me and I’m not likely to make it again. They are too many other brownie recipes to try or too many good ones to re-make.

Brownie
3 cups cake flour (not self-rising flour)
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
1 ½ teaspoons salt
1 ½ cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
3 cups sugar
6 large eggs, at room temperature
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
9 ounces unsweetened chocolate, melted

Icing
1 pound (2 eight-ounce packages) cream cheese, softened
6 tablespoons (¾ stick) unsalted butter, softened
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
6 cups confectioners’ sugar

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Grease a 12 x 18-inch jelly roll pan.
3. To make the brownie: In a large bowl, sift together the flour, the baking powder and the salt. Set aside.
4. In a large bowl, cream the butter and the sugar until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Lightly beat the eggs, then add to the creamed mixture and mix well. Add the vanilla extract. Add the chocolate and mix until well incorporated. Add the dry ingredients. Pour the batter into prepared pan. Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until a cake tester inserted into center of pan comes out with moist crumbs attached.
5. To make the icing: In a medium-size bowl, on the medium speed of an electric mixer, beat together the cream cheese and the butter until smooth, about 3 minutes. Add the vanilla extract. Gradually add the sugar and beat until well incorporated.
6. Let the brownies cool completely, then ice with cream cheese icing.
7. As an optional icing, try this fudge frosting: In a small saucepan, combine ¾ cup heavy cream and 12 ounces semisweet chocolate and place over very low heat. Stir constantly until smooth. Remove from heat and stir in ¾ cup confectioners’ sugar until dissolved. Allow to stand until firm.

Easy Devil's Food Cake with Mocha Buttercream

Easy Devil's Food Cake with Mocha Buttercream - October 11 & 12, 2009

A good chocolate cake is hard to make. Mixing and baking chocolate cakes is easy enough but having them turn out well is another matter. I've tried dozens and dozens, if not hundreds, of chocolate cake recipes and I'm not satisfied with most of them. Cakes dry out too easily if left in the oven for just one minute longer than necessary and they come out gummy if you take them out too soon. Even if you master the texture and come up with a tender, moist crumb, sometimes they're lacking in flavor or they're too chocolatey (yes, there is such a thing as too chocolatey).

Of course, that doesn't stop me from trying to find good chocolate cake recipes. This one is from the Family Baker by Susan G. Purdy. It was easy to make but would it pass the taste test? I baked the cake layers last night but since it was late and they wouldn't be cool enough to frost by the time I went to sleep, I covered them tightly with plastic wrap and let them sit for a day. I made the frosting tonight after work and assembled the cake tonight. The taste test? Hmm, unfortunately, to me, it was just okay. It was moist enough but I couldn't decide whether I liked the chocolate flavor or not. This was made with cocoa and I used my favorite brand - Pernigotti from Williams Sonoma which has a nice, deep chocolate flavor. I don't know whether it was just my natural prejudice of "day-old" cake not being fresh enough or whether I, for once, was not in a chocolate mood.

On the plus side, the frosting turned out pretty well and I'm not usually a frosting person. I'm especially not fond of buttercream as too often it's slick and "too creamy" meaning I don't like the slick, almost greasy texture. But this frosting had less slickness than traditional buttercreams and the mocha was a nice contrast to the chocolate and added good flavor. I don't drink coffee but I love coffee-flavored stuff, especially paired with chocolate. When I was a kid in the Philippines, my favorite ice cream was mocha made by Magnolia, a local company. When we came to the States, mocha ice cream was hard to find when I was younger. In my college days, I discovered premium ice cream ran to mocha but nothing was still as good as the mocha ice cream I had in the Philippines.

Lastly, I didn't do a very good job with the layers - take a closer look at the picture. The bottom layer is thinner than the top layer meaning I didn't divide the batter evenly enough between the 2 cake pans. Also, they're not lined up very well as the bottom layer juts out more than the top. In culinary school, we learned to hide the deficiencies in cake layers by filling in with frosting when needed but that all gets exposed as soon as you slice the cake.

Easy Devil's Food Cake with Mocha Buttercream

Cake
2 ¼ cups sifted all-purpose flour
1 ¼ teaspoons baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cup sifted regular, unsweetened cocoa
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 ½ cups granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 ½ cups buttermilk

Mocha Buttercream
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
4 to 6 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar, as needed
1/3 cup sifted regular unsweetened cocoa
½ cup double-strength regular or espresso coffee or 1 tablespoon instant espresso powder dissolved in ½ cup boiled water
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1. Position racks to divide the oven into thirds and preheat it to 350˚F. Coat the pans with shortening, then sift on a layer of cocoa; tap out excess.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt and cocoa.
3. In the large bowl of an electric mixer, beat together the butter and sugar until well blended, then beat in the vanilla and eggs. Add all the dry ingredients and the buttermilk and, with the mixer on lowest speed, beat a full 60 seconds. Scrape down the bowl and beater. Beat on high speed about 3 minutes, until the batter is smooth, light and fluffy. Scrape down the bowl and beater again.
4. Divide the batter between the prepared pans and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until the top feels springy to the touch and a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool the layers in their pans on a wire rack for about 10 minutes, then run a knife between the cake sides and the pans, top each layer with a plate or wax paper-covered wire rack and invert. Lift off pans. Cool the layers completely on wire racks.
5. To prepare the buttercream: In the large bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter until very sort and creamy. Slowly beat in about 2 cups of the sifted sugar, then scrape down the bowl and beater. Add 2 more cups of the sugar, cocoa, coffee and vanilla, beating until completely smooth and very creamy. Add the remaining sugar as needed to bring to spreading consistency.
6. To assemble the cake: Place a dab of buttercream in the center of the foil-covered cardboard disk or on a serving plate. Center one layer on the desk. Spread the layer with about 1 cup of the buttercream, top with the second layer, and then align the cake sides. Spread icing over the cake sides, then the top.

Black and White Chocolate Pudding Cake

Black & White Chocolate Pudding Cake - October 11, 2009

When I first read a recipe for pudding cake, I was intrigued. How could you pour water on top of cake batter and have everything come out okay? It just seemed - well, weird. So I never really made pudding cakes before but always wanted to try one. Today, because I had a fresh carton of milk to use up before it expired next week, it seemed like a good time to try it.

This recipe is from The Family Baker by Susan G. Purdy and touts itself as "one of the easiest cakes to make". Since I had just taken two layers of a devil's food cake out of the oven and popped in a "hot milk cake" to take its place (more about those in a future post), easy sounded good to me. And it was. Mix up the cake batter, spread it in the pan, sprinkle a layer of cocoa and sugar on top, and pour a cup of boiling water over it before sliding into the oven. And whaddaya know, when it comes out, it's both cake and liquid fudge mixed in with much of the fudgy liquid pooled at the bottom. Whoever discovered this was a genius.

Unlike lava cake which is baked in small ramekins at a high temperature and taken out while the center is still liquid, pudding cake is a random combination of cake and fudge sauce in every spoonful. Like lava cake, it's meant to be served warm with ice cream. The nice thing is pudding cake can be made in a single pan so no messing around with individual-sized ramekins. On the other hand, this recipe isn't as rich as the other lava cakes I've tried in the past. Still, it's got a homey touch to it in both taste and appearance. I'd consider it a poor man's lava cake (nothing wrong with either).

Black and White Chocolate Pudding Cake

1 cup unsifted all-purpose flour
1 1/3 cups granulated sugar, divided (2/3 cup and 2/3 cup)
½ cup sifted, unsweetened cocoa, preferably Dutch-processed, divided (¼ cup and ¼ cup)
2 teaspoons baking powder
Pinch of ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cup milk
¼ cup canola or other mild vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ cup white chocolate, very coarsely chopped, or white chocolate chips (largest size available) or semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup boiling water

1. Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat it to 350˚F. Butter an 8” square baking pan and set it aside.
2. In a mixing bowl, combine the flour, 2/3 cup of sugar, ¼ cup of cocoa, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. Stir to blend, then mix in the milk, oil, vanilla and white chocolate. The batter will feel quite stiff. Spread it in the baking pan.
3. In a small bowl, stir together the remaining ¼ cup cocoa with the remaining 2/3 cup sugar. Spread this evenly over the batter in the pan and pour the boiling water on top. Do not stir.
4. Bake the cake 25 to 30 minutes, or until the top looks crisp and crackled and a cake tester inserted in a cakey area comes out clean. Cool the cake a few minutes, then serve warm, spooned directly from the pan. Top with vanilla ice cream or unsweetened heavy cream.

Pumpkin Cake with Brown Sugar Icing

Pumpkin Cake with Brown Sugar Icing - originally made on 12.31.08

Since I dissed pumpkin for so many years, I feel the need to atone by blogging about some of the great pumpkin recipes I've discovered once I got over my mental block about pumpkin. This is a pumpkin cake with brown sugar icing - yeah, it's as rich as it sounds. This is from Fearless Baking by Elinor Klivans which is a recipe book I've really enjoyed trying recipes from. Elinor Klivans has some other books but I've found one of her cookie books to be pretty much all the same recipe with minor variations of the mix-ins you add to it. One recipe has the same ingredients except you add milk chocolate chips instead of semisweet or throw in white chocolate chips too and she seems to consider that 3 different recipes. (Read: ripoff if you buy the cookbook.) Not so with Fearless Baking. I've gotten some good recipes from it, including this one.

The cake itself is super easy to make. The only liberty I took with it is the recipe calls for adding the pecans on top once you have the batter in the pan. Previous experience has taught me that even if you add the nuts to the top, while baking, the nuts will sink into the cake anyway and once again we have that I-don't-like-nuts-in-cakes problem. So I waited until the cake was almost done then added the pecans to it so they would stay on top and not sink into the cake. It worked.

Pumpkin Cake
1 ½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour
¾ teaspoon baking powder
¾ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 ¼ teaspoons ground cinnamon
¾ teaspoon ground ginger
1 cup canned pumpkin
1 cup granulated sugar
½ cup canola or corn oil
2 large eggs
¾ cup pecan halves

Brown Sugar Icing
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
2/3 cup whipping cream
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup powdered sugar

1. Mix the cake: Position an oven rack in the middle of the oven. Preheat the oven to 325˚F. Butter or rub with oil the bottom and sides of a 9 x 9 x 2-inch or 11 x 7 x 2-inch pan.
2. Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and ginger onto a piece of wax paper or into a medium bowl and set aside.
3. Put the pumpkin, granulated sugar, and oil in a large bowl and beat with an electric mixer on medium speed until smooth, about 1 minute. Add the eggs one at a time, beating to blend each thoroughly into the mixture. The mixture looks smooth and shiny. Decrease the speed to low and add the flour mixture. The batter is ready when the flour is mixed completely into the batter. Use a rubber spatula to scrape the batter from the bowl and spread it evenly in the prepared pan. Scatter the pecans evenly over the top.
4. Bake the cake: Bake just until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean, about 30 minutes. The cake can be iced when it is warm or has cooled, but let the cake cool in the pan for at least 10 minutes before adding the icing. Use a small knife to loosen the cake from the sides of the pan before adding the icing.
5. Make the icing: Put the butter, cream, and brown sugar in a medium saucepan and cool over medium heat until the butter melts and the sugar dissolves, stirring often. Increase the heat to medium-high and bring the mixture to a boil. Boil for 3 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from the heat and stir in the vanilla just to blend it into the mixture. Set aside to cool slightly for about 30 minutes. Sift the powdered sugar into a medium bowl. Pour the slightly cooled sauce over it and use a whisk or electric mixer to beat the icing smooth, about 1 minute or less. It will change from a brown to a light brown color. Immediately pour the icing over the cake in the pan. Use a metal spatula to spread it evenly, if necessary. If the cake is warm, the icing spreads by itself. Icing will drip down around the edges of the pan and thinly coat the sides of the cake. This is good. Cool the cake and icing thoroughly, about 3 hours, but mark the portions in the top of the icing as soon as it is firm enough to hold the mark. Cut the cake into 9 squares. A thin metal spatula and a pancake turner work well together to help lift the cake squares from the pan. Serve the cake cold or at room temperature.

Pumpkin Upside Down Cake

Pumpkin Upside Down Cake

It's October so we need to start talking about pumpkins. First, I never liked pumpkin when I was growing up. We didn't really eat it when I was growing up as you can imagine it's not a traditional Filipino food. Second, I based my dislike of pumpkin solely on pumpkin pie which is what I thought was the only thing you could do with pumpkin. It sounded good when you read about it in cozy Little House on the Prairie-type books. But the reality of it was different and I didn't (and still don't) like pumpkin pie - maybe because the first couple I tried weren't that good. I didn't like the texture and it seemed overspiced. But third and most importantly, I was wrong about pumpkin. You can do more with it than put it in a traditional pumpkin pie. And in the right recipe, it's fabulous.

My eyes - and taste buds - were first opened when I attended a Sur La Table cooking class in Los Gatos, CA where Emily Luchetti, the former pastry chef of Stars, gave a cooking demonstration of recipes from her then-newly published cookbook, A Passion for Desserts. She made this recipe for Pumpkin Upside Down Cake that was simply delicious. You make a caramel sauce, pour it in the bottom of the baking pan, add toasted pecans and cranberries, cover it all with a pumpkin cake batter, bake it then flip it over when you take it out of the oven. Delicious. Note the exception here from my previously stated bias about nuts. I don't normally like nuts with cakes unless they're baked on top and don't get into the cake itself. Technically these are baked on the bottom but they end up on top. Regardless, toast the nuts first to bring out their flavor. Ironically, the caramel, which is a liquid that you'd think would soften the nuts, actually help them retain a somewhat crisp texture when the cake is cooled. And that makes everything okay.

My other bias is against using fruit or berries in desserts. I don't even normally like cranberries and you won't find jellied cranberries on my plate at Thanksgiving. But cranberries are perfect with this cake as they provide a tart contrast to the sweetness of the caramel and the cake. Use raw ones and they'll soften and cook just right when the cake is baked. I may have a lot of odd or rigid preferences in certain things when it comes to baking but I'm happy to find recipes that prove to be the exception. It makes me believe I could probably like many things, if I could just find the right combination for them in baking.

Pumpkin Upside Down Cake

8 ounces (16 tablespoons) unsalted butter
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
2 cups cranberries
4 ounces (1 cup) coarsely chopped pecans, toasted
2 large eggs
1 cup pumpkin puree
6 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 cup granulated sugar
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon salt

1. Preheat oven to 350˚F. Line the bottom of a 9-inch square pan with parchment paper.
2. Melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Add the brown sugar and whisk until smooth. Pour the brown sugar mixture into the bottom of the prepared pan.
3. In a medium bowl, combine the cranberries and pecans. Place them in the pan over the brown sugar mixture.
4. In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, pumpkin puree, and oil. In another bowl, sift together the flour, granulated sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. Stir the flour mixture into the pumpkin mixture. Carefully spread the batter over the cranberry pecan topping.
5. Bake the cake until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes. Let cool for 10 minutes on a wire rack. Place a large plate or platter on top of the cake. Invert the cake and plate together, then remove the pan. Carefully peel off the parchment paper.
6. Let cool completely before serving.