Upside-Down Pumpkin Cake

I was assigned dessert for last Sunday's dinner-with-the-family. About 8:00 p.m. on Saturday I set about deciding what to make. At that point there's no convincing me to go to the store for extra ingredients, my energy expired about 4 hours earlier. Though this would typically mean preparing one of the stand-by recipes that you always have the ingredients for, none of them sounded perfect. Instead I pulled out a recipe book I received from my Mom this past Summer. It's one of the classic compilation cookbooks, put together by a Relief Society, and handed out to friends and family for a great/cheap gift. I love them. I love them mostly because they are tried and true recipes that someone has made and enjoyed enough to put into a cookbook. This one is HUGE, very well organized and tabbed and it's from Alpine, Utah so it's high class, y'all. :)

I opened up the dessert section and started looking for recipes that sounded good that also included ingredients found in the Snow family pantry (which by the way is still a shelf, in my dining room...big, nice pantry is coming soon). Recipe #4....Upside-Down Pumpkin Cake...sounded perfect. It's Autumn, almost my beloved pumpkin season...AND I had all of the ingredients...

It was perfect. If by perfect you mean moist, easy, delicious and ok to cook 16 hours before it needs to be eaten - Perfect!

So, thank you Mr. and Mrs. Pranger from Alpine, Utah. I've never met you, probably never will, but the recipe you provided our Texas Snow family will be used again, and again, and probably again...

UPSIDE-DOWN PUMPKIN CAKE

1 (15 oz) can pumpkin

1 (12 oz) can evaporated milk

2 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. nutmeg

1/2 tsp. ginger

pinch salt

1 1/2 c. sugar (I would decrease this to 1 c., it was pretty sweet)

3 eggs, well beaten

1 box yellow cake mix

1 cup coarsely chopped pecans

1 cup melted butter

Combine pumpkin, milk, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, salt, sugar, and eggs in a large mixing bowl and blend well. Pour batter (it is pretty runny) into a greased 9 x 13 in. baking pan.

Spread dry cake mix over top of pumpkin mixture. Sprinkle with pecans and drizzle with butter. Moistening as much of the dry cake mix as possible with the butter. Bake 1 hour in 350° F oven. Cool slightly and serve with whipped topping.