Great Pumpkin Dessert

I served this recipe at my daughters baby shower last week and decided today that I was craving another taste of this delicious dessert.  When I started to make the dessert, I realized that I didn’t have a yellow cake mix in the house or for matter, I didn’t have any canned milk, either.  What to do, what to do……I really wanted to make this dessert so I hopped on the internet to find some substitutes for the ingredients I didn’t have.  Here is the recipe I came up with:

The chopped nuts are optional but for me, optional does not even factor into the equation.  I love nuts in my recipes.  I wanted to clean out the freezer of the nuts I had already chopped and I found a bag that had been in the freezer, buried, for a long time.  I had heard that frozen nuts never go bad but it wasn't until I had placed the dessert in the oven that I found a nut on the counter so what else could I do but pop it in my mouth.  Oooohhh – this nut had gone over to the dark side, totally bad…nasty!  Now I’m just waiting for my dessert to get out of the oven to see how it turned out with the changes and the nasty nuts!  As I walked in the kitchen, the dessert still had 10 minutes to go but it smelled like it was getting done so I opened the oven door to check on it and sure enough, it was reaching the point of TOO DONE. 

I took a small piece while it was hot to see how it tasted.  I usually eat this dessert cold.  It tasted alright (I like it better cold) but the crust was a little firm.  Maybe the substitute cake topping won’t work for this recipe or I just need to adjust the cooking time.  I guess the proof will be in the pudding, so to speak, when I get brave enough to slice a piece big enough to get the taste buds working.

Ok, here we are the next morning….and yes, I did say morning and yes, just for the sake of the pudding proof, I’m going to have the pumpkin dessert for breakfast.  When I tried to cut a slice from the pan, it was hard, really hard and it was difficult to get a piece out of the pan without the topping crumbling all to pieces.  I kind of mushed the topping down so it would look better for a picture but you can see the big crack right across the middle.

So here’s my thought…….anything tastes better with whipped cream, right?!

Ok, the topping was too hard to cut with my fork.  I had to lift off a big chunk with my fork and take a bite.  For the rest, I put my fork on top, mushed down very firmly, squishing all the good stuff underneath the rock pile out, covered it with the whipping cream and ate it.  The bottom part was really tasty so I will definitely use the evaporated milk substitute recipe again.  As for the top, it actually didn’t have too bad of a flavor so I’m thinking it would be good if cooked a bit less.  Is it as good as the original?……..No, but in a pinch it will do especially if I can get a good topping to work.  I guess it’s back to the drawing board…………….another day when I’m craving this deliciousness on a fork.  But for those of you looking for a great pumpkin dessert, I highly recommend the original recipe….it’s GREAT!