Pumpkin Roll

I am back… God has healed me and I am able to enjoy life again woohoo! This Thanksgiving is going to be extra special with all that I have to be thankful for. I thank all of you that have been praying for me ,words can’t express how thankful I am for you!   Today I thought I would update the pumpkin roll recipe. We are making a couple of pumpkin rolls for friends that provide service for us over the year. For the past few years I have been trying to convert my mom to using parchment paper instead of wax paper for baking the pumpkin roll on, well today was the day that we tried it and what do you know it worked like a dream! Our pumpkin roll recipe is perfect for Thanksgiving dessert, elegant but no fuss. Let me know your Thanksgiving traditions, one of my family’s is to bake pumpkin rolls for people who have provided us with excellent service through out the year. I hope all of my American friends have a wonderful Thanksgiving filled with family, love and God’s richest blessings!
Find out more about my pumpkin roll recipe and tradition after the jump 🙂 
Today I am re-posting my pumpkin roll recipe, I originally posted the recipe on November 19, 2013. I have taken new pictures of the pumpkin roll since I have progressed in my food photography as well as bought a new camera. I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as my family has for years!

November 19, 2013
Pumpkin Roll has been a family tradition at Thanksgiving time for as long as I can  remember. My mom was given the recipe many years ago at a Woman’s Event at  church, over the years we have changed the recipe and made it our own. I  remember when I was about 5 years old and living in Florida, we were having a  garage sale and my mom set out a plate of her Pumpkin Roll to give samples. At the  garage sale a Restaurant owner ate a bite of the pumpkin roll and was immediately  in love with it! He asked her to bake several rolls for his restaurants, after that the  word was out! My mom and I made countless pumpkin rolls for restaurants and  friends, my mom turned her pumpkin roll into a business. We had the business for about two years. Now that I am older and love to cook I have taken over the making of the pumpkin roll, I now carry on the tradition ever year.

Moms Pumpkin Roll

1 cup flour

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp baking soda

3 eggs

2/3 cup pumpkin puree

1/2 cup sugar

Preheat oven to 375. Mix flour, cinnamon, and baking soda then set aside. In another bowl mix remaining ingredients until smooth. Add in flour mixture half at a time slowly in pumpkin mixture. After all of the ingredients are mixed together and smooth, pour the batter onto a jelly pan/ large cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Make sure the parchment paper is hanging over the pan so that when it is done cooking you can hold onto the paper to take it out of the pan. Place the batter into the preset oven for 10-15 minutes, while the batter is in the oven prepare a piece of wax paper on the counter with powdered sugar dusted onto it. Once the cake is done in the oven pull the cake out of the pan and turn it out on to the piece of wax paper you have on the counter. Quickly pull the cake off of the parchment paper you cooked it on. Once the cake is off the parchment paper you cooked it on roll the cake onto it self with the wax paper dusted with powdered sugar let it cool. Once the cake is cooled go ahead and make the filling for the pumpkin roll.

Filling for Pumpkin Roll

3 TBS butter, softened

8 oz cream cheese, softened

1 cup powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract’

Cream the softened butter and cream cheese with a mixer. Once the butter and cream cheese are smooth slowly add in the powdered sugar in small increments. After you have added all of the powdered sugar into the cream cheese and butter mixture and it is smooth add in the vanilla. Spread the cream cheese filling into the cooled pumpkin roll, make sure the filling is evenly distributed through out the pumpkin roll. After you have spread the filling, reroll the pumpkin roll in a new piece of wax paper, tape the ends of the wax paper onto it self so that the Pumpkin Roll is completely covered. Enjoy the Pumpkin Roll out of the fridge.

Christmas at The Galt House Hotel in Louisville Kentucky.

Last night for dinner we visited Cafe Magnolia at The Galt House Hotel.
We arrived around 5:30 and were seated promptly by the window looking out at the river. Our waiter was wonderful! His level of service was reminiscent of a Fine Dining Restaurant! We ordered the Pineapple Teriyaki Chicken and the Florentine Chicken Pasta, both came with a salad. The salad was good, nothing truly spectacular about it, but good! When our food arrived we were shocked to find the Teriyaki Chicken was inedible, it was so salty we could not eat it! Also some pieces of the chicken were shredded, other pieces were cubed, the chicken was not cooked properly. The Florentine Chicken was better but still on the salty side.

When we called our waiter over he immediately apologized and put in a order for the Florentine Chicken and said he would have a manager come over. Fifteen minutes later our waiter came over again to inform us that our new dish would be out soon but that he could not find the manager, he again apologized and said as soon as he found the manager he would send her over. Once our new dish came, the manager finally came over and asked what the problem was. We explained the issue to her, she then replied that she would take the Teriyaki Chicken off our bill then off she went. We ate both dishes of Florentine Chicken but was not completely satisfied. Once we were done with our meal we had to wait another 25 minutes for our bill. So in closing for the restaurant portion of The Galt House Hotel, Cafe Magnolia was very disappointing, but on the bright side our waiter was amazing!

After we finished eating we decided to walk around the hotel to see the Christmas Displays. At The Galt House Hotel they are known for their Christmas Spectacular, they have been featured on several media outlets. We did not have enough time to go through The KaLightoscope Christmas event but we did enjoy walking around the two towers of The Galt House Hotel. There are so many beautiful decorations and lights, the pictures below don’t do justice to the beauty of the Hotel and Christmas decorations. They do have several other restaurants on site. Including the Rivue that is on the 25th floor offering spectacular views of the City. They also have a little coffee shop where you can grab a cup of coffee and sit down in the beautifully decorated atrium and take in all the beautiful hanging lights and displays. If you are ever in the Louisville Kentucky area at Christmas time I highly suggest visiting the Galt House and trying one of the many other restaurants they have.

When we came out of the hotel we where surprised by the fact it was Snowing! The picture below does not do the snow justice!

Related articles

• Dawne Gee plays Santa at the Galt House Hotel (wave3.com)
• Light Up Louisville! (sanctuaryhomes.net)
• Kalightoscope kicks-off for Christmas season at Galt House (whas11.com)

Makeup Brush Cleaner

Every week I clean my make up brushes with this formula. It has worked great for me! Especially after I get back from a trip I always do a deep clean of my brushes, when at home every other day I clean my brushes with ELF makeup brush cleaner.

I rarely take the ELF cleaner with me on trip for the simple reason of it does not have a cap on the spray nozzle, if memory serves me correctly I do not think the cleaner came with a cap. Other then that hold back I absolutely love the ELF cleaner, I found mine at Target but you can also purchase the cleaner from their website, the link to their website is in the picture of the ELF cleaner.

As you can see my make up brushes are very dirty and in need of a good clean!

Put 2 TBS Dawn Dish Soap and 2 TBS Olive Oil in a small container. When you are ready to clean the brushes put a dash of water in the container.

Start swishing the brush around in the mixture, you will see the dirt start to lift away from the brush. Continue cleaning the brush until the mixture is the color of your makeup. I like to rinse the brush in hot water, if make up continues to run off of the brush I will do another cleaning in the mixture.

Here you can see how dirty the mixture is from all of the dirt, grime, and makeup that was in the brushes. After you have finished cleaning the brushes in the mixture rinse them off in hot running water.

The clean brushes.

To dry the brushes I used my towel bar and a hair band to keep the brushes upside down, I leave them there over night to dry.

Related articles

• Cleaning your makeup brushes (theotherendofthebrush.wordpress.com)
• How I Clean My Brushes (cookiescurvyandachronicle.com)

Pumpkin Roll

 Pumpkin Roll has been a family tradition at Thanksgiving time for as long as I can  remember. My mom was given the recipe many years ago at a Woman’s Event at  church, over the years we have changed the recipe and made it our own. I  remember when I was about 5 years old and living in Florida, we were having a  garage sale and my mom set out a plate of her Pumpkin Roll to give samples. At the  garage sale a Restaurant owner ate a bite of the pumpkin roll and was immediately  in love with it! He asked her to bake several rolls for his restaurants, after that the  word was out! My mom and I made countless pumpkin rolls for restaurants and  friends, my mom turned her pumpkin roll into a business. We had the business for  about two years. Now that I am older and love to cook I have taken over the  making of the pumpkin roll, I now carry on the tradition ever year.

The Ingredients for the pumpkin roll.

100% pure pumpkin, we have used Libby’s for as long as I remember.

The flour, cinnamon and baking soda in a measuring cup.

Sugar, pumpkin puree, and three eggs.

Mixing the puree, eggs, and sugar together.

Adding the flour mixture into the pumpkin mixture.

Scraping the batter onto the wax paper lined jelly roll pan.

The batter spread evenly, ready to go into the preheated oven.

Timer set and oven heated.

Peeling the wax paper off of the pumpkin cake.

Rolling the hot pumkin roll up in wax paper dusted with powder sugar to cool.

Now onto the filling for the Pumpkin Roll

Softened butter and softened cream cheese.

The creamed butter and cream cheese being mixed with powdered sugar.

Spreading the cream cheese filling into the pumpkin roll.

The pumpkin roll with filling ready to be wrapped in wax paper to go in the fridge.

The finished product.

Moms Pumpkin Roll

3/4 cup flour

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp baking soda

3 eggs

2/3 cup pumpkin puree

3/4 cup sugar

Preheat oven to 375. Mix flour, cinnamon, and baking soda then set aside. In another bowl mix remaining ingredients until smooth. Add in flour mixture half at a time slowly in pumpkin mixture. After all of the ingredients are mixed together and smooth, pour the batter onto a jelly pan/ large cookie sheet lined with wax paper. Make sure the wax paper is hanging over the pan so that when it is done cooking you can hold onto the wax paper to take it out of the pan. Place the batter into the preset oven for 15 minutes, while the batter is in the oven prepare another piece of wax paper on the counter with powdered sugar dusted onto it. Once the cake is done in the oven pull the cake out of the pan and turn it out on to the piece of wax paper you have on the counter. Quickly pull the cake off of the wax paper you cooked it on, if the cake starts to stick to the wax paper when you are peeling it off use a serrated knife to pull the cake off of the wax paper. Once the cake is off the wax paper you cooked it on roll the cake onto it self with the wax paper dusted with powdered sugar let it cool. Once the cake is cooled go ahead and make the filling for the pumpkin roll.

Filling for Pumpkin Roll

3 TBS butter, softened

8 oz cream cheese, softened

1 cup powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract’

Cream the softened butter and cream cheese with a mixer. Once the butter and cream cheese are smooth slowly add in the powdered sugar in small increments. After you have added all of the powdered sugar into the cream cheese and butter mixture and it is smooth add in the vanilla. Spread the cream cheese filling into the cooled pumpkin roll, make sure the filling is evenly distributed through out the pumpkin roll. After you have spread the filling, reroll the pumpkin roll in a new piece of wax paper, tape the ends of the wax paper onto it self so that the Pumpkin Roll is completely covered. Enjoy the Pumpkin Roll out of the fridge.

Related articles

• Six Yummy Organic Pumpkin Recipes You Can Make for Thanksgiving! (inhabitat.com)
• 12 Pumpkin Sweets for Thanksgiving Feast (formulamom.com)
• Pumpkin Spice Roll Recipe (kraftrecipes.com)