Pumpkin Better Than ... Cake

November 24, 2012

While Black Friday shopping didn't go 100% as planned, Old Navy was a massive disappointment.  This cake made up for our late Thursday shopping. 

A little note on Black Friday, I hit up Target, Old Navy, and Belk. I got everything I wanted plus some from Target with no problem at all. The target in Monroe was so organized and had tons of staff to help out, as well as enough security to keep crazy people under control. We waited forever to get in at Old Navy and were lucky enough to be the first crowd through the door, right after us they stopped letting people in. I grabbed everything I wanted, particularly the Rock Star Skinny Jeans, and headed to check out. My number one issue should have been that the jeans ran two sizes larger than what I wear in the Diva. They advertised that jeans started at $15, but had no prices marked in the women's jeans in store. When I got to check out they told me they were $25 and I asked for a price check, at that point the manager popped off at me, so I happily told them to put it all back and walked out. Had she not ticked me off I would have probably paid more than I thought I was going to pay for the jeans...but the super large size # and the horrible staff attitude made me run for the door after sitting in line for an hour to get in and an hour to check out. It was pathetic. Today around lunch I headed back out to Belk and managed to get some black boots and a really cute lace top with a velvet peter pan collar for really cheap. With no problems! 

Lesson learned: Don't shop Old Navy in store for events, they are unorganized & don't buy their jeans. They are inconsistent with sizing and not worth the fuss. 

Now back to the cake...

I started to name this thing Diabetic Pumpkin Cake, because I am sure that is what I will have if this thing doesn't get eaten by people other than me soon. It could also be called "You are going to need a larger pant size cake," but that isn't very appealing. Let's just stick with what Pinterest called it: Better than Sex Cake. Let's face it, it almost is. It is definitely Better than Black Friday at Old Navy Cake. 

This super easy recipe calls for minimal ingredients and doesn't taste at all like pumpkin pie for those nutmeg haters like my mother. She even liked it and she refuses to eat pumpkin. The lack of eggs lowers the calories, but the high sugar content really makes up for it. I shopped quick for the ingredients for this in my little home town so making it less calorie heavy was not quite so easy. I would really like to redo it one day and healthy it up a bit more. 
Better than ... Pumpkin Cake
adapted from Something Swanky
serves
Ingredients:
1 box of golden butter cake mix
1 small can of pumpkin puree (not the pie filling)
1 - 14oz can of fat free sweetened condensed milk
1- 8oz tub of light cool whip
1 bag of Heath Bits
Caramel Ice Cream Topping

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350. Combine cake mix and punpkin puree, do not add other ingredients listed on the cake mix box. Pour batter into a greased glass baking dish. Bake according to the directions on the cake mix box. When cake is done, allow to cool for a few minutes and poke holes all over using the back of a wooden spoon. Poor over sweetened condensed milk, filling holes, and refrigerate overnight. The next day (no less than 3 hours later if you are in a hurry) spread on cool whip, top with Heath Bits and caramel topping to your preference. 

You could easily use only half of the bag of Heath Bits and leave out the caramel sauce. With the sweetened condensed milk the caramel doesn't seem totally necessary. If y'all know of a good swap for sweetened condensed milk let me know!