Hello, fall! Hello, pumpkin!

So as you can probably tell, I'm just a little excited for fall. My Pinterest account can attest to that. But for some reason I've been holding back on making pumpkin goods. There have been two cans of pumpkin sitting in my pantry for weeks now and I've done nothing but stare at them. I think it has something to do with the fact that I want to make everything I see that has pumpkin in it, and because I can't, I haven't made anything at all. But....... that all changed last night. With a Relief Society dinner fast approaching I finally caved. I decided that I would go ahead and make not one, but two desserts. First on the list was cheesecake. Do you remember how I attempted to make that raspberry white chocolate one a couple of months ago? Maybe not. Hopefully not. I know I'd rather not remember, but thankfully I figured out where I went wrong. Anyway, instead of relying on a recipe I had bookmarked in my KitchenAid cookbook, I decided to be really brave and make my own. And guess what? It turned out REALLY good! I'm just a little proud ;) Unfortunately since I had to take it to the dinner, I never got a picture of the inside. So all you get is the before and after. What can I say? A picture is worth a thousand words. (P.S. the recipes below are 4x6, so all you have to do is print them!)

For the second dessert I made pumpkin cupcakes. I have been seeing a lot of recipes on blogs and websites for cupcakes, but again, I decided to create my own. And yet again, another success! My only suggestion is to store these in the refrigerator (because of the cream cheese) and to add extra powdered sugar to the frosting if you're planning on piping it like I did... it helps keep things in place.