Happy Sunday! December is here!!!! Spices, carols, lights, cocoa and friends. Yum, I love this season.

Christmas Cocoa

Hopefully everyone is having a wonderful day and getting to spend some quality rejuvenation or special family time. Currently, I should be getting my house cleaned and finishing up my cake and goodies for tonight, but instead I’m enjoying a little bit of blogging time before the day gets away from me. I’m really enjoying “jotting” down my random thoughts, and trust me, there are many. Random thoughts.

Back to today, tonight we’ll be having a small house full of people over for our annual Christmas White Elephant. Every year for the past four years it’s been so much fun! I can’t believe this is our fifth year in a row!!! I’m really looking forward to kicking off the holiday festivities. Mmm and hot cocoa! Goodness I love that stuff. The good ones that is. Nothing like warming you up from the inside out…on a “cold” Maui evening… Well, it does drop a few degrees at night!

What’s on the menu? Cocoa! hehe and food of course. We always have it as pupu style (appetizer finger foods). This year I’m going to try this Pesto Chicken Crescent Wreath… Hope it turns out because it looks ono (yummy). We’ll also be enjoying some Italian style pizza, yakisoba chow mein, spanikopitas, probably some sushi (so difficult to avoid when pregnant!), veggies & hummus, chips & salsa, some other “main” pupus depending on what our guests bring and some desserts.

I’ll have to share this cake recipe I’m making. It’s so simple and delicious (feedback I’ve received) that I’m making it again for a Christmas gathering tonight. It’s a TWO ingredient Pumpkin Spice Cake w/ whipped cream cheese frosting that is not overpowering in any way. It tastes best chilled. So light, so easy, so yummy! I’ll attach it below with my additions per reviews I perused. Then it is a few more ingredients, but I think it does make all the difference from “okay” to “delish!”

Well, time to get back to prepping and cleaning!

Aloha,

Lady Aloha

Two Ingredient Pumpkin Spice Cake (+ ingredients I added) thanks to allrecipes.com  

1 (18.25 ounce) package spice cake mix

1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin

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Changes I made:

1/2 cup applesauce (no sugar added)

3 eggs

cinnamon

powdered ginger

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Cream Cheese Frosting:

1 package cream cheese

1/2 cup powdered icing sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1 quart whipping cream

Honestly, I just winged it with the frosting and it turned out tasty without being too sweet. Tip, keep the whipping cream separate and cold until ready to gently fold into the rest of the ingredients. That’s probably the “toughest” part.

Bake cake. Cool. Frost. Chill. Cut. Eat!