Great Pumpkin Sheet Cake

“The Great Pumpkin Sheet Cake showed up at a family Thanksgiving meal decades ago. I believe my sister was the one who baked it. I asked for the recipe and then immediately tweaked it to make it my own. Now, I don’t remember exactly what I did to make it mine.

“Besides the sugar high — because there is a lot of sugar especially in the cream cheese frosting — this cake always says, to me, “Okay, the holidays are here.” It makes me feel like family. It makes me feel all warm and that it’s time for the snow to fly and the fires to burn and to snuggle up with a hot steaming cup of coffee and watch winter go by.

“The name kind of came from the Charlie Brown Halloween Special. ‘It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!’ So I called it the Great Pumpkin Sheet Cake.”

— Dale “Elias Tucker” Grubaugh

CAKE:

• 4 eggs beaten
• 1 cup oil
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 16-oz. can pumpkin
• 2 cups flour
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons baking soda in 1 teaspoon water

Mix eggs, oil, sugar, pumpkin and soda. Add flour, cinnamon, baking powder and salt. Pour into un-greased baking sheet. Bake for 20 minutes at 400°F.

ICING:

• 8 oz. cream cheese, softened
• 1 stick butter, softened
• 1 box powdered sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1 cup pecans

Mix all ingredients except nuts. Spread over cake and sprinkle with pecans.