Welcome to the World Birthday Cake

(a pumpkin spice layer cake)

We got a little metaphysical with this cake. Because he's a fall baby, we wanted a fitting autumn cake. And, so it would have a little bit of his "homeland" in it, we roasted a local calabaza, a small, green Caribbean pumpkin. For the apple butter, we used some that our friend Kate had made from scratch, with apples that she and our friends hand-picked upstate. So it's got a little bit of our former home in it, too.

Needed for the cake:

3 cups of cake flour, sifted
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
2 tbs cinnamon
2 tsp ground ginger
3 tsp allspice
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups demerarra sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil (if it’s a special occasion, get fancy and try macadamia nut, walnut or pumpkin seed oil)
1/2 cup apple butter
4 eggs
1 3/4 cups roasted pumpkin, pureed til smooth with a little orange juice (or one 15 oz can of pumpkin, you cheater)
1 tbs vanilla extract
the zest of one clementine or small tangerine
1 tsp finely chopped fresh ginger
3/4 cup of unsweetened dried coconut, chopped

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour two 9” cake pans and set them aside. In a medium-sized bowl, combine all the dry ingredients in and fluff them a bit with a fork to mix them up. In another, bigger bowl, thoroughly beat together the two sugars with the oil and the apple butter. The add the eggs one by one, stopping to mix each one in well before adding another. Add in the pumpkin, vanilla, ginger and zest and mix well. To this mixture, add the flour mixture little by little - mixing only enough to combine, and then stir in the coconut even more gently.

Pour the cake batter into your prepared pans and bake for about an hour, or when the top of the cake springs back when you touch it gently with your finger.

Needed for the icing:

1 8oz package of room-temperature cream cheese
1 1/4 sticks of room-temperature butter
1 tsp lime uice
1 tsp vanilla extract
4 cups confectioner’s sugar, sifted

With an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese and butter together until smooth. Mix in the lime uice and vanilla, then add the sugar in several batches. Watch the icing carefully and be sure not to overmix - if it becomes too soft, it won’t spread easily later! This icing freezes well.

Happy Birthday!

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