1 cup pure pumpkin (not pie filling)

3 eggs

1 1/2 cups brown sugar. ( I like dark brown)

1/2 cup melted butter

1/3 cup avocado oil (you can use any oil except olive oil. The flavour is too strong)

1/2 cup sour cream

1/2 cup whole milk

2 tsp. pure vanilla

2 tsp. Baking Soda

2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice

1/2 tsp. salt

2 cups all purpose flour

**leftover cranberries. I happened to have 1/2 cup leftover cranberry sauce that I made for Thanksgiving. I also found some homemade strawberry jam in a small container. About 1 TBLSP. I put the two together and scattered it in blobs on top of the batter in the pan. I then took a knive and swirled the sauce through the batter. You could also use all jam, or you could eliminate this part. I do think it adds flavour to the cake. If you have made your cranberry sauce with orange juice and sugar, it will be ready to use. If you are using cranberries that have nothing added, pour 1 cup fresh or frozen cranberries into a sauce pan. Add 1/4 cup orange juice, or the juice from one orange. But first, ZEST THE ORANGE. You need the zest for the icing. (Use some muscle. Get every bit of juice goodness out of that thing) cook this mixture on medium low until most of the berries turn to sauce. (it doesn’t take long. about ten minutes. I have incinerated more than a few batches of cranberry sauce) Add 1/4 cup maple syrup.

Cream Cheese icing. I have never had great success with cream cheese icing. For some reason it never gets stiff enough for my liking. I also do not like my icing to be overly sweet. I realize I could thicken it more by adding more icing sugar, but I did not want to do that. Feel free to make your own cream cheese recipe.

This cake was delicious and moist without the icing. I happened to divide the cake between a few people and just gave them each a little ziploc bag with a few spoonfuls of icing inside. I told them to snip off the end to put the icing on the cake, if they wanted to. Putting it in the fridge for a while also helps to firm up the icing.

Icing:

1/2 cup soft room temp. butter

1/2 cup soft room temp. cream cheese. (It will not work if your butter and cream cheese are not soft)

zest of one large orange. This is very important. It gives the icing great flavour.

1 tsp. pure vanilla

3 TBLSP milk

approximately 4 cups icing sugar (but do it a bit at a time to be sure you are not adding too much)

If you feel that your icing is too thick, you may add a few drops of milk

METHOD:

Turn oven on to 350

line a sheet pan (roughly 11 by 17 inches) with parchment paper (I rarely bake without parchment)

melt your butter. Do not cook it. Just barely melt it. Add the oil, add the sour cream, add the milk.

In a large bowl mix the pumpkin and the three eggs. add the sugar and mix.

Add the butter mixture, vanilla, give a quick mix. Do not overmix.

Add the flour, baking soda and pumpkin pie spice and salt. stir briefly, to combine

pour mixture into the prepared sheet pan

Drop cranberry mixture onto cake and using a knife, swirl it through the top of the batter.

Bake for 25 minutes, until a tester comes out clean

Allow to completely cool before you ice it.

Enjoy!