What's orange and smells like a pumpkin?

A pumpkin.

Bwahahaha!  I just now made that up.  Share it with your friends and have a laugh.  Or a blank stare.  Or an eye roll.

Remember how a few weeks ago I alluded to being sick of pumpkin?  Well don't worry- I have my second wind.  So much so that I'm proclaiming it to be

PUMPKIN WEEK!

Minor correction- we'll do "Pumpkin Monday-Friday."  I need my weekends for myself, people.

To start off our gourd-stravazana, let's try a pumpkin coffee cake.  Basic recipe with some nutrition upgrades thrown in.

Pumpkin Cinnamon Coffee Cake

1 (18.25 oz) box yellow or white cake mix- no pudding added kind

1 (3.4 oz) package sugar-free vanilla instant pudding mix

2 whole eggs + 3 egg whites

3/4 cup water

1/4 cup oil

1 cup pumpkin puree 

1 cup brown sugar

1.5 Tbsp cinnamon

1 teaspoon each: cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, ground cloves

1 cup chopped walnuts

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Coat a 9x13 baking pan or a 10-inch Bundt pan with nonstick baking spray.

2. In a medium bowl, stir together the cake mix and vanilla pudding mix.  Add the eggs, oil, water, pumpkin, and 1 teaspoon cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves- beat with an electric mixer on medium for 1-2 minutes. 

3. In a smaller bowl, combine cinnamon, brown sugar, and nuts.  Pour half of the cake batter into the pan, spreading evenly.  Sprinkle with half of the sugar-nuts mixture over the batter.  Cover with the rest of the batter, and sprinkle with the rest of the sugar-nuts.

4. Bake for 20 minutes in the preheated oven, then turn the oven down to 325 degrees and bake for an additional 35-40 minutes.

It's light, fluffy, and not overwhelmingly pumpkin-tasting.  I cut it up into 16 pieces and individually wrapped them for freezing.  

 

Per serving: 260 calories, 41 g carbs, 9 g fat, 4 g protein, and 37% of your vitamin A for the day.

I give you a virtual high-five if you too giggled when I said "sugar-nuts"...twice.