Just in time for your Thanksgiving feast here is a pumpkin cake that has the flavor of a pumpkin roll, but is so much easier to make! I never could get the hang of it! Each slice has a cream cheese “tunnel of love.” The orange glaze puts it over the top! For fresh orange flavor, use navel orange zest and juice. Orange juice from a carton just won’t do!

If you are like me…I never can remember to set out the cream cheese to soften or the eggs to come to room temperature. My solution? Get out two cereal bowls. Place the cream cheese in one bowl and the eggs in another. Cover with hot tap water. Set both bowls aside then assemble the remaining cake ingredients. By then the cream cheese will have softened and the eggs will be at room temperature. Problem solved!

Orange Pumpkin Bundt Cake with Cream Cheese Ribbon and Orange Marmalade Glaze– Makes 1 Bundt cake

Cream Cheese Ribbon  (“Tunnel of Love”)
8 ounces real cream cheese- Not Nuefatchel
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup orange marmalade
1 egg
Preheat oven to 350F. Spray a 12 cup Bundt pan with baking spray. In a medium size bowl beat cream cheese and sugar together with an electric mixer for 3 to 4 minutes or until light and fluffy. Add 1/2 cup orange marmalade and 1 egg. Mix until incorporated. Set Aside.

Pumpkin Bundt Cake
1 large navel orange
15 ounces pumpkin puree
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
1 Butter Golden cake mix
2 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Grease and flour Bundt pan. Remove zest from a large navel orange. Divide zest into two halves. Put one half in a large mixing bowl (for the cake) and the other half in a medium size bowl (for the glaze). Juice Navel orange. Add 1/2 cup orange juice to the mixing bowl and 1 tablespoon orange juice to the glaze bowl. Set glaze bowl aside.

Add pumpkin, oil and eggs to the zest and 1/2 cup orange juice already in the mixer bowl. mix with a mixer for 1 minute to combine. Add cake mix, pumpkin pie spice and cinnamon. Mix on low for 1 minute then scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Mix on medium speed for 3 minutes. Scrape sides of bowl.  Pour 1/3 of batter in Bundt pan. Spoon cream cheese ribbon filling on top of cake batter. Keep the cream cheese ribbon 1/2 inch away from edge of pan. Spoon remaining 2/3 cake batter over cream cheese ribbon.  Smooth top of batter.

Bake 350F for 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick comes out with a few flecks of cooked cake on it. Remove cake from oven and run a plastic knife around the edges and center of the pan. Cool for 30 minutes then invert on a serving discovered with enough plastic wrap to cover the cake. This is the secret to a really moist cake. The moisture will initially go out of the cake as steam and look like beads of water inside the plastic wrap then all the moisture will be reabsorbed as it cools! Remove plastic wrap and glaze.

Orange Marmalade Glaze
1 tablespoon fresh orange juice
zest from 1/2 a navel orange
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted
1/4 cup orange marmalade
1/2 cup powdered sugar

To the reserved orange zest and 1 tablespoon orange juice in the “glaze” bowl add the melted butter, orange marmalade and powdered sugar. Stir until smooth. Spoon on cake. Refrigerate leftovers. Enjoy!

Published in The News and Neighbor on November 18, 2015