Ok, I know autumn supposedly started Wednesday but it still feels really hot to me. I walked over to Weatherstone with a buddy for some coffee today and I was sweating...errrr, glistening!...on the walk back. Fall can't come soon enough. Maybe it's because I'm an October baby but man, I love bundling up (all those layers hide the love handles I'm working on), drinking hot apple cider by a fire, and don't forget the smell--- I LOVE the smell of autumn. It has a crisp, clean scent that I wish I could bottle up and sniff through the year.
Anyhow, hopefully with the entrance of autumn, I'll be more inclined to drag my tired ass into the kitchen and cook and thus, blogging more. I'm sorry, really, for being MIA for so long. Seriously, I may have the same amount of hours in the day as Beyonce but I am dead tired...every day.
Despite being in a perpetual state of lack of sleep, one thing I do look forward to is my monthly book club. Last month's book was Carson McCullers' "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter." It was an extremely depressing read but we had a good discussion about it. I had signed up to bring dessert and wanted to bring something Southern, since the book took place in Georgia. While rummaging through the internet, I ran across a picture of a Pig Pickin' Cake and decided to bake one. It was easy to make (I made it the night before) and it turned out delicious (albeit not the most attractive cake I've ever made). I looked up the origin of the name (c'mon admit it--you were thinking "WTF?" too!). Turns out that it's called a Pig Pickin' Cake because it's a typically a dessert brought to pig roasts (aka a "Pig Pickin'") in the South. Despite the weird mish mosh of ingredients, it's very tasty and not super fattening.
Pig Pickin' Cake
Ingredients
1 box Duncan Hines Yellow Cake Mix
1 11 oz. can mandarin oranges
4 large eggs
1/2 cup canola oil
1 3.4 oz. package vanilla instant pudding (it has to be instant)
1 15oz. can crushed pineapple with juice
1 12 oz. container of Cool Whip Lite
Instructions
1. Line pan bottoms with parchment paper.
2. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
3. In a large bowl, combine cake mix, oranges (with the juice), eggs, and oil.
4. Divide the cake mix into two 9 inch circular pans.
5. Bake for approx. 30 minutes. Remove cake from oven and cool completely. Pop the cakes out of the tin and remove parchment paper. Place one cake on a serving dish.
6. In a large bowl, mix together instant pudding mix, pineapple with juice, and the Cool Whip Lite.
7. Spread frosting along the top of the first cake. Place the second cake on top. Cover the whole kit and caboodle with frosting.
8. Store it in the fridge until you are ready to serve it.
Interesting. I learned it in the Midwest as a pea-pickin' cake. I do it as a sheet pan and had it as my birthday cake.