Pumpkin Cake with Pecans and Orangy Cream Cheese Frosting

My sister made me the best pumpkin cake from a recipe in a previous post when I visited her this past weekend. She turned the recipe into a two layer cake and added orange zest to the cream cheese frosting. It was fabulous! Better than the original! She also added nuts to the frosting in the middle of the cake which was perfect. The best part was that not only did I have a slice each day for 3 days, but I also got to take some home when I had to sadly leave.

Ingredients:

1 ½ cups sugar

1 ½ cups all purpose flour

1 ½ tsp baking powder

1 ½ tsp baking soda

1 ½ tsp cinnamon

½ tsp salt

1 (15 oz) can of Pumpkin (Libby’s brand is the best)

¾ cups oil

2 large eggs, slightly beaten

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 °F. Grease and flour 2 round cake pans. Sift sugar, flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt in a large bowl. Add oil and beat with a mixer until dry ingredients are moistened. Add pumpkin, beat until smooth, then add eggs and beat for 1 minute. Pour into pre-greased pans and bake on middle shelf for 30 minutes (or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean).

For the Frosting:

8 oz. cream cheese, at room temperature

¼ cup butter, at room temperature
1 tsp vanilla

1½ cups powdered sugar

Orange zest

Pecans, chopped 

Beat cream cheese, butter, and vanilla with a hand mixer. Sift in the powdered sugar 1 cup at a time. Beat until smooth and thick. Stir in orange zest. 

To frost the cake, Spread some frosting on the first layer of cake. Sprinkle with chopped pecans. Top with the second cake and frost all over and around the sides. Decorate with whole pecans. Slice and serve. Keep refrigerated.