The Novel Bakery

Pumpkin spice cake with cream cheese frosting, moist and rich with hints of nutmeg and brown sugar mixed together with sweet roasted pumpkin that melted lusciously in the mouth all layered with velvety decadent cream cheese frosting, and in a whim she had topped it off with shreds of toasted coconut, adding a hint of crunch and extra sweetness.  —Heartless by Marissa Meyer

I was so excited to read Heartless after finishing Marissa Meyer’s Lunar Chronicles. Such a great series. While Heartless didn’t live up to Cinder, it was still an entertaining origin tale of the Queen of Hearts. Not to mention overflowing with baking inspiration!

“…overflowing with cakes and gingerbreads, pies and strudels and chocolate filled croissants. The back wall would be hung with baskets , each stuffed with fresh baked bread. She saw herself behind the case wearing a pink-checkered apron still dusted with that morning’s flour. She was filling a jar with biscotti while Mary Ann, in matching yellow checkers, wrapped up a dozen shortbread cookies in a lime-green box.”

Pro tip: Prep a snack before cozying down with Heartless. Preferably a sweet one.

 

The protagonist, Catharine, is a baking fiend. (She reminded me quite a bit of Ari from The Wish Granter). I wrote down no less than 27 different goodies I could have made for the blog: tarts, macarons, cobblers, cakes…don’t read this book hungry.

After much deliberation, I decided on cupcakes inspired by the pumpkin spice cake Cath enters into the baking contest. I skipped on the coconut and questionable pumpkins.

I used this delicious cake recipe from Zoe Bakes. I doubled the ginger. When I make it again, I’m going to double all the other spices and triple the ginger. Cause I like my pumpkin spice with a emphasis on the spice. The recipe as is is deliciously sweet and subtle, so you can’t go wrong there. The recipe is for a cake, but I got 24 cupcakes out of it, baked at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.

I didn’t make any changes to Zoe’s cream cheese frosting recipe. (I opted for the honey option instead of syrup).

Autumn goodness in every bite!