Pumpkin Roll

I was in charge of bringing a dessert to my Husband's Grandma's for Thanksgiving last Saturday.  I was going to make a cheesecake but didn't have all of the ingredients on hand and didn't want to make a trip to the store. Not to mention, by the time I read the recipe I realized that I wouldn't have had enough time to bake the cheesecake.

This looked incredibly daunting to make but I had all of the ingredients, needed to bring a dessert and didn't have a back up plan.  It's not as intimidating as it looks, I promise.  I wish I would have remembered to take a picture of the final product, but I didn't. This isn't even that great of a picture.  When I make it again, I'll be sure to get some better pictures.

I'm actually going to bring two of these to my Mom and Dad's house for Thanksgiving on Thursday.  If you need a quick and easy dessert to bring somewhere this Thanksgiving, I'd definitely recommend this recipe.  The cake is light and moist, the filling is creamy and smooth and together, they provide a very decadent dessert.

Libby's Pumpkin Roll
Recipe from: Libby's
1/4 cup powdered sugar
3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp salt
3 eggs
1 cup sugar
2/3 cup pumpkin

For the filling:
1 (8oz) package cream cheese, softened
1 cup powdered sugar, sifted
6 tblsp butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla
1 tblsp whipping cream

Preheat oven to 375*.  Grease a 15x10 jelly roll pan, line with wax paper and then grease and flour the waxed paper. Sprinkle a thin, cotton kitchen towel with the 1/4 cup powdered sugar. Set aside.

Mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves and salt. In a separate bowl, beat together the eggs and sugar until combined and thick. Beat the pumpkin into the egg and sugar mixture.  Add the flour mixture to the egg mixture.  Mix until combined. Pour batter into the prepared pan.  Bake at 375* for 13-15 minutes. The top of the cake should spring back when touched lightly.

Immediately loosen the cake and turn onto the prepared towel. Give it a minute or two to start to cool off and then start removing the paper. I immediately started removing the paper as soon as I flipped the cake onto the towel but was having trouble.  I let it cool a little bit and the paper came off much easier.  The paper did not come off super smoothly, but it wasn't completely ruined either.

Roll up the cake and towel together.  Place on a wire rack to cool completely.

While the cake cools, mix up your filling.  Beat the cream cheese, powdered sugar, softened butter and vanilla together in a stand mixer until smooth. The original recipe doesn't call for whipping cream, but I added it because I was concerned that the filling was going to be too thick and not very light.  I'm very happy that I decided to add the whipping cream.

Carefully unroll the cake.  Spread the cream cheese mixture onto the cooled cake. Re-roll the cake.  Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least one hour. Before serving, sprinkle the outside of the roll with the powdered sugar.

Note: I chose to cut off the ends of the cake because they were jagged and not very nice looking.