Hood $10,000 Pumpkin Cake

With Laurie Lufkin

According to Laurie Lufkin the secret to this prize winning recipe is the caramel sauce. The official name of the recipe is New England Buttermilk Pumpkin Cakes with Sour Cream Apple Caramel and Dried Cranberries. She created this dessert for a recipe contest that involved using a Hood dairy product, and in a moment of inspiration she used sour cream as one of the creaming agents for the caramel sauce topping. The result helped her to win a $10,000 prize and another step in her climb up the recipe contest ladder.

Have you ever wondered about entering and winning one of those recipe contests yourself? In addition to learning how to make this spectacular recipe, Laurie is very generous in giving advice and tips about the world of recipe contests. How do you find out about contests? How do you create recipes? What is the recipe strategy? Laurie, an amateur cook who has taken an interest in creating recipes for fun and profit, will teach you all about it.

Ingredients

Pumpkin Cake
1 1/4 cup all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg, at room temperature
1 cup pumpkin puree
1/4 cup Hood Fat Free Buttermilk
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3 teaspoons demerara sugar, divided
6 tablespoons sweetened dried cranberries, divided
Hood Original Instant Whipped Light Cream

Sour Cream Apple Caramel
1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup water
3 tablespoons salted butter
1/4 cup Hood Heavy Cream
3/4 cup Hood Sour Cream
Pinch salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 Cortland apples, peeled and (cut in to 1/2” to 3/4” matchsticks)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350F.
1. Spray 6 1-cup ramekins with nonstick spray.
2. In a medium size bowl, sift flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg. Set aside. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar. Beat in egg, pumpkin, buttermilk and vanilla. Slowly mix in dry ingredients and beat until well combined.
3. Divide batter among ramekins, sprinkle with 1/2 tsp demerara sugar and bake 25 to 28 minutes until a skewer inserted in the center of cake comes out clean.
4. Meanwhile, make the apple caramel. In a heavy bottomed sauce pan, mix the sugar and water. Bring to a simmer over medium-high heat. Stir gently until sugar is dissolved. Allow mixture to boil until mixture starts to darken. When the liquid is medium caramel color turn off the heat and whisk in the butter until melted, then the cream and sour cream til smooth.
5. Add salt, vanilla extract and apples.

To serve: Plate cakes individually, spoon caramel over top and top with 1 tablespoon of cranberries and whipped cream.

Recipe courtesy of Laurie Lufkin, Host of Inspired Cooking, 2010.

From Food For Thought Column about Laurie by Heather Atwood:

Her mother and grandmother taught her to cook. She is teaching her daughter, 9-year-old Lilly, to cook, but the sensible checkered-apron imagery stops there when describing Essex resident Laurie Lufkin. The energy spilling from her Cape Ann TV cable access program, "Inspired Cooking," should be harnessed and re-sold by National Grid. Admittedly unschooled in culinary arts, Laurie Lufkin, 44, is an example of someone who has found her niche and is powered by her passion. Her instincts for a good recipe, for taste and texture combinations, make up for her lack of formal education.

Her vivacity is clearly fueled by love; Laurie loves and is brilliant at recognizing a good recipe, and then making it a blue-ribbon winner. Her grandmother's Essex clam cakes for example: Two years ago Laurie took this recipe, added clam broth and cream to her version, and turned it into something Food Network-competitive, landing her on the program's "Ultimate Recipe Showdown — Hometown Favorites." Laurie didn't win the $25,000, but getting to be one of four finalists from around the country wasn't bad for a girl who runs a silk-screen business and whose hobby seems to have long ago out-raced her vocation.

When she insists I understand that her mother taught her how to cook, that she makes wonderful chicken soups, legendary pumpkin and date nut bread, that she made a great dinner every night with few resources, I listen.

The apple does not fall far from the tree as Laurie's daughter Lily recently appeared on national TV and a national parenting magazine with a recipe she created called "Monkey Business Chocolate Rice Pudding."

Laurie's recipes have appeared in such publications as "Taste of Home," "Family Circle" and will she will be featured in an upcoming issue of "Yankee Magazine."

Contact Heather at heatheraa@aol.com. Her blog is at gloucestertimes.com/foodforthought