Maple Pumpkin Sheet Cake

Adapted from Taste of Home's Maple Pumpkin Torte

I had part of a can of pumpkin left over from some muffins I made last week, and I needed to use it up. This recipe was appealing, but I was too lazy to make the layers (plus I only have 2 rounds and this needs 3), so I adapted it to be a sheet cake. I'd do the layers for a special occasion, but just to have around the house a sheet cake is easier to make and to store.

1 package white cake mix
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 cup water
3/4 cup canned pumpkin
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
4 Tbsp brown sugar
2 cups white or vanilla chips
1/2 cup chopped pecans

Spray 9x13 cake pan with cooking spray. Heat oven to 350.

In large bowl, combine cake mix, flour, cinnamon, water, pumpkin, oil, eggs, and brown sugar. Beat well. Stir in white chips and chopped pecans. Pour into prepared pan and bake 30-35 minutes, until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean.

Remove and cool completely. You can eat it like this (it is good enough), but why not add more sugar?

Frosting:
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, softened
3-4 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup milk (or 1/4 cup milk plus 1/4 cup brewed coffee)
1 tsp maple flavoring
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/8 cup chopped pecans (optional)

Mix butter through vanilla. Tweak amounts of sugar/milk/coffee to taste. Frost completely cooled cake. Sprinkle with chopped pecans if desired.

The frosting turned out a little "wet" for my taste, and tasted a bit too much like butter. Basically, you could take your favorite buttercream frosting recipe and add some maple flavoring (and maybe a little coffee) to it and you'd have the same thing.

In the original torte, only the middle layer had pecans and white chips.

Overall, this is a yummy way to use up leftover canned pumpkin. For an everyday "snack" cake, I'd skip the frosting (but then it's really just a pumpkin white chocolate chip cake).