It's tradition in my family to have pumpkin roll as a dessert during the holiday season dinners and my mother's pumpkin roll was perfect every year. I always bitched about her only making one roll, since there were six of us in one household, one pumpkin roll was gone within hours and having just one slice wasn't enough. Now we're all older and our family has grown with the addition of three sister-in-laws. With good intentions, they took over the Thanksgiving & Christmas dinners so my mother can take a compete load off.
One year the sister-in-laws made a menu that.. was good, but too untraditional for the likes of my brothers & father. They got a slap on the wrisor replacing mashed potatoes with some potato balls, cranberry sauce with brussel sprouts & removing pumpkin roll. I'm more open to change and trying new food than the rest of my family so it was no big deal to me. I thought the brussel sprouts was a refreshing change, but probably because I hate cranberry sauce or anything gelatin-like. I defended the girls for not knowing about pumpkin roll because they never had it. So, at Thanksgiving dinner, I was employed by the girls to be in charge of the revered pumpkin roll.
Now, pumpkin roll is a PAIN IN THE ASS to make. It's tricky as hell to roll up a soft sponge cake without it cracking or breaking. I don't know how my mother pulled it off so flawlessly. Nevertheless, I served the ugly cake I made at Christmas and even though it tasted just as good, it was the perfectionist in me that was totally unhappy with the pumpkin roll. So, I came up with an idea to turn pumpkin roll into a cake or.. a CUPCAKE!!
My test batch of the harvest pumpkin cupcakes came out perfect. I couldn't be happier with the flavor of the cake. I saw that the recipe was close enough to pumpkin roll and therefore, the cake tasted just like pumpkin roll. The orange cream cheese frosting got me interested. The roll recipe my mother uses just your basic cream cheese frosting, but the orange flavor added into the new recipe sounded like it would be delicious combo so I went ahead with the recipe I found. I thought maybe the orange would be too overwhelming with the pumpkin, but the flavor was more subdued than imagined and was a perfect compliment. I know my family isn't more open to change, but I think the fact that pumpkin roll won't be a roll won't bother them. I'm sure it's the taste that they crave. I'm going to serve these cupcakes for Thanksgiving 2011, half with the original cream cheese frosting and the other half with the orange cream cheese and see which they'll like better.
R grading (B+): My boo actually doesn't have a sweet tooth. One or two cookies will satisfy his sugar craving for MONTHS and he doesn't even care too much for cupcakes because they're too sweet for him. So, when I noticed him eating more than one within the two days they were in my kitchen, it made me happy. But it shouldn't have been a surprise because I introduced him to the decadent pumpkin roll and he loves the mess out of some pumpkin roll.
B grading (A+): When I told her they were pumpkin cupcakes, she said with a smirk on her face, "I don't like pumpkin anything, but I'll try them." After eating them, all she could say was "these are soooo yummy!" And for me, it was all I needed to hear.
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