I love Trader Joe’s cake mixes. They have the best crumb. In the past I’ve been able to get lots of different flavors, but since Covid they basically only have the yellow cake mix. So I decided to try and experiment and see if I could convert yellow cake mix into different flavors of cakes. My first attempt was chocolate. I added unsweetened cocoa and a little extra milk to get it to the right consistency. I almost always add instant coffee to anything chocolate, so I added that as well and it was delicious. So this time I decided to try and make a pumpkin spice cake from a yellow cake mix. Using Trader Joe’s yellow cake mix I added pumpkin purée, molasses, and pumpkin spice and used Starbucks pumpkin spice creamer for the milk. It came out awesome here’s the recipe. Of course I ate this with my Starbucks cold brew with the pumpkin spice creamer in my jack-o’-lantern mug. I don’t care that it’s only August 30. 🎃
Ingredients
1 box Trader Joe’s yellow cake mix
2 eggs
1 stick melted butter, slightly cooled
1/2 cup pumpkin purée
1 tablespoon vanilla, the real stuff, not imitation
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 a teaspoon ground cardamom
1/2 a teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
1/2 a teaspoon ground cloves
Pinch of salt
1 cup(ish) Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Creamer
1/4 cup of molasses
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350°. Dump the yellow cake mix into a bowl and add the two eggs, melted butter, the pumpkin purée, the vanilla, and all of the spices and the salt.
Add the molasses to a measuring cup, then fill the measuring cup with creamer until it reaches 1 cup. Stir the two together, then add it to the cake mix mixture. Using a stand mixer, hand mixer or whisk beat all the ingredients together well.
Spray two bread pans with nonstick baking spray and divide the batter evenly between the two pans. Bake at 350° for 30 to 40 minutes. The box said 28 minutes for an 8” round. I had to add an additional 10 minutes with my oven. The middle should spring back slightly.
Allowed to call slightly, then dump out to coal completely.
I think this would be great with cream cheese spread on a slice. It would also have been good if I had added pecans or walnuts, maybe some golden raisins. If you like it sweeter, you could add white chocolate chips or sprinkle raw sugar on top of the batter before baking. It will make a nice sweet, crunchy top. You can also make a simple glaze with the pumpkin spice creamer and powdered sugar. Just pour powdered sugar into a bowl and drizzle a little bit of the creamer in there at a time it doesn’t take very much, so start off with a tiny amount, and slowly add until it’s the consistency you want and drizzle that over the loaf. If you’d like your pumpkin bread really spicy just add additional spices. When I tasted the batter it tasted almost too spicy to me, but once it baked it toned down. Right before you put the batter into the oven just taste it. If it tastes just a little bit too spicy it’s probably perfect.
DAGNY | the g is silent but I am not 