Myself and Bruce

Mom and I went to Chudleigh's famous apple farm yesterday so I could get a pumpkin... yeah, that makes all the sense in the world. I had an early shift yesterday so It was the only time I figured I would have between now and Halloween to get a nice pumpkin. I had to use FRESH cut pumpkin since I use %100 of the sucker so it had to be a good one.
The outside gets carved/sculpted depending on time constraints. Bruce here wasa little of both. I used a metal table spoon, a steak knife and a pairing knife for everything. There was actually very little mess. The pulp gets seperated from the seeds very diligently. Pulp goes into my famous pumpkin spice cake which I make from scratch ONLY when I get to carve a pumpkin. The seeds get salted and toasted in the oven. I ate about half of them yesterday.

Pumpkin Cake from scratch (don't worry, it's REALLY easy)
2 cups all purpose flour
2tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking sode
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1cup veggie oil (or baking oil of anykind. Corn and sunflower work well too)
1 1/2 cup sugar
4 eggs
at least 1.5 - up to 3 cups pumpkin pulp, depending on what size pumpkin you had to work with. don't go over 3, cake gets squishy. Less then 1.5 and cake doesn't get enough pumpkin.

1. Oven goes @ 325 degrees. greese/butter/line two 9" round cake pans
2. Mix together/sift the flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon
3. Mix sugar, eggs and oil. make sure it's mixed REALLY well and you can't tell the difference between the eggs and everything else.
4. Stir in the dry stuff until it all looks like a brown cake batter.
5. Puree the pumpkin and add to the mix. I use knives to split mine up, but I think a blender would work much better.
6. Pour equal amounts into each pan and cook for about 60 minutes. Cake will be a little springy. When you put the toothpick in the middle it will come out dry if it's done just like any other cake.

you can ice with creem cheese if you want (UMMMM! GOOD!) or just lightly butter and seve warmed in the microwave. Serves well warm or cooled. This recipe is also really good for carrot cake. Put in 3 cups grated carrot and 3 crushed walnuts or 1/2 cup raisens.