Fall Flavors Poke Cake

Happy Halloween!!!

I had always dreamed of the day that I would be passing out candy to kids in my neighborhood from my own home. Except, my own home is on a main road, so I don't think we'll get any kids here. Looks like the bag of Dum Dum Pops are coming to work with me tomorrow....

Today, in my classroom we had a Halloween/Send Off party. One of our teacher aides had her last day today, so the kids and teachers brought in goodies and we had a celebration all afternoon. I decided to make something for it, obviously, and I wanted it to be pumpkin. Apparently, poke cakes are all the rage on Pinterest, I've seen about 30 different recipes for them, and I actually made an oreo one last year for a student's birthday. I found a recipe for a pumpkin one, but then couldn't find any pumpkin spice pudding at the store, so I improvised and made the cake my own. I decided to go with cheesecake flavored pudding, and chose butterscotch pudding to put into the cake mix. It's a great mix of pumpkin, butterscotch, cheesecake, cinnamon and maple flavors. We just need some apple and it would be every fall flavor you could think of. Oh, and I topped it with some caramel, so even more! The great thing about poke cakes, is that you can make it any flavors you want, with extremely little work. You used a boxed cake mix, boxed pudding mixes, and can use Cool Whip for the topping, with a few extra ingredients threw in. I recommend taking the 5 minutes to make fresh whipped cream though, there are few things better than fresh whipped cream, except maybe a flavored whipped cream.

Fall Flavors Poke Cake
adapted from Beyond Frosting 

1 pkg. spice cake mix
1 3.4 oz. pkg butterscotch pudding
3 eggs
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup sour cream
3/4 cup milk

2 pkgs. cheesecake pudding
4 cups cold milk

2 cups cold heavy whipping cream
3 tbsp. pure maple syrup
1 tsp. cinnamon

1. Preheat oven to 350. Grease a 9x13 pan.
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer, mix together the cake mix and butterscotch pudding mix. Add the eggs, oil, sour cream and milk and beat until combined.
3. Pour into the pan and bake for 18-22 minutes.
4. When the cake is done baking, cool for 10 minutes and then, using the handle of a mixing spoon, poke holes into the cake all over.
5. In a bowl, whisk the cheesecake pudding and cold milk together for 2 minutes. Let sit for 3-5 minutes until it thickens up just a bit, but is still pourable. Pour over the cake, spreading to cover the holes and entire cake. Place in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.
6. In the bowl of a stand mixer, whisk the heavy whipping cream for about 5 minutes until soft peaks form. Slowly add each tablespoon of syrup while whisk. Add cinnamon and whisk on low until combined. Spread over pudding layer of cake. Keep refrigerated until ready to serve.

Top with chocolate chips or caramel sauce (or any topping you like!).