Under a Blue Moon

Happy 1st day of October!  The countdown to Halloween officially starts.  I thought I would kick it off with pumpkin cake topped with deliciously light whipped cream cheese frosting.  

As I was taking pictures I realized that this is very close to the apple spice cake I made last month.  The difference is I found a much better cream cheese frosting.  The previous recipe had four cups of powdered sugar where this one only has one.  Much less cloying and oh so much fluffier. 

The cake recipe I used is the One-Bowl Pumpkin Sheet Cake from A Cozy Kitchen.  I followed the cake recipe exactly but used a different recipe for the frosting.   The frosting recipe I used comes from Natasha's Kitchen and it is so fluffy and light and just the right amount of sweetness. 

Here's something that happens behind the scenes…Since I don't eat cake (or any sweets) it is a little ridiculous to make an entire cake just for Rick so I tend to bake on Sundays so I can take it to Sunday dinner at my Dad's.  But I also want to take glamour shots of whatever I make.  I first take pictures of the whole cake then I cut a piece to get pictures of the inside of the cake.  Afterwards I carefully put the piece back and smear the frosting along the cut lines to hide them.  Ha! No one is the wiser.

A Cozy Kitchen decorated her cake with pretty pastel jimmies that she made herself.  Not having the patience or the wherewithal to do that I settled for a mix of white and orange.  But I love the idea of less garish colors when decorating cakes and found this shop that sells a huge variety of different colored jimmies.  I would have done a mix of peach and ivory.  

On Wednesday I'll share the Halloween Party invitations.  They have been all sent off on Saturday so the recipients should have received them and it won't ruin the surprise.

A couple of weeks ago the Minister of Creative Ventures (is that not a fabulous title?) at The Republic of Tea reached out and asked if I would like to try some of their teas.  They had seen a previous post on tea, my beverage of choice, and thought I might like to review some of their offerings.  Free tea?  I'm in!

And just to get the disclaimers out of the way I was sent the tea for free but am not being paid or even required to review it.  And if it turned out I didn't care for it I wouldn't review it all, to be honest.  The old 'if you don't have anything nice to say' adage runs deep in my veins….

I was invited to visit their website and pick anything I like – an old favorite or maybe something new.  I did both.  I am a black tea drinker (English Breakfast being my favorite) and could have stuck with that.  But their line of cozy weather teas caught my eye and I choose the Pumpkin Spice tea.  The pumpkin spice latte folks shouldn't have all the fun.

Of course I had to make a pumpkin pie as a prop.  Even though the temperatures are in the 90's right now.  Fall?  What fall?  

I start every morning with my low-carb muffin which I make with pumpkin pie spice.  I thought the tea would be the perfect pairing for it.  It is a black tea with cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves and allspice.  To me it is a little more sophisticated than pumpkin pie spice you would use to make a pie.  I find that some spiced teas can go overboard with the cinnamon but this is nicely balanced.   I use a vanilla coconut cream and almond milk creamer in my tea and the addition of vanilla is really nice.  

As for the company itself, The Republic of Tea is headquartered here in Northern California and is committed to creating a fair and sustainable tea industry for tea workers, farmers and the environment.  They also routinely donate to a number of non-profit organizations and causes like the American Red Cross for the relief efforts of the Northern California wildfires that have devastated our state.   

Great company with an admirable ethos and lovely tea.  Thank you, Minister of Creative Ventures, for inviting me to try your tea.