Pumpkin Spice Cake

It’s October, that time of year when the leaves change colors, a cool nip is in the air and everyone starts thinking seriously about their costume for Halloween! HA! Who are we kidding! October is summer in San Francisco and it is hot. The air ain’t cool, it isn’t even clear. Leaves? What leaves? They’ve all died from the smoke and heat. And forget Halloween, it has been cancelled this year and if you didn’t know that then well, your COVID bubble needs to get a computer to at least keep up with some current events.

But beyond all that sad, stupid, madness, pumpkin is still a thing. I know this because Trader Joe’s has trotted out all their pumpkin thingys and that latte is out their some-starbucks-where. And as anyone who has followed me all these years, I’m down for some pumpkin—-as long as it is good. And if it is bad, I’m probably still gonna try it so I can whine about how bad it really is, it’s what I do.

In this instance, I specifically mask up and head out in search of pumpkin stuff when the air clears just enough that no ash will be raining down upon my take-out before I can get it safely back home to try. This particular trip brings down toward the Marina in search of dessert to feed the ache in my sweet tooth for something that is totally not good for me. Because if there was ever a time to stress eat, this is it. Probably why Susie Cakes was calling my name.

Sure, I’ve been here before, but in these times they are one of the few places still left in business that are doing cake slices in large sizes to fit my need for a dessert with heft—-and icing.

Thus my attraction to this four layer pumpkin spice cake with pumpkin cream cheese frosting and a slight chocolate drizzle on top. One thing I can say about Susie, she seems to have mastered the moistness of cake. Here they’ve mixed that with some sponginess too which helps this go down yummily smooth. You get all the spice flavor through this with notes some earthy pumpkin. The fact it also has the pumpkin in the cream cheese frosting is also a plus and flavor boost. The little chocolate flap like thing you see at the top of the pick really seemed to be more an aesthetic thing as opposed to really adding any flavor to this, In fact, It would do just as well without it. I’m not sure my pallet really appreciates pumpkin and chocolate together. My one knock would be more icing between the layers. I do think they could have pumped it up a bit more. Because of the spices here, it does not come off as too sweet thus adding some more frosting wouldn’t detract from the mouthful of fall you are gonna get here. Maybe that is the icing snob in me but so what.

Seems Susie doesn’t just do cakes. You can also get cookies like the pumpkin spice whoopie pie with pumpkin buttercream filling above. This almost comes across as more a soft cookie than a cake like whoopie. It is the texture of crumbliness instead of cupcake plus the whole look screams cookie, but I still liked it and ate it. The soft works better to help keep the cream filing from squeezing out when you bite into it. This is all doughy and pumpkiny with a real shot of sugar from the buttercream. Again, while I was a fan of this, I think it would have benefited from just a small smear more of the filling. I mean, there is a reason Oreo makes double stuffs, it is what the people want. In this instance, the people is me and I just want a tad more.

Since I was in a waistline, diabetic coma be damned type of mood I splurge for even more and got a slice of their supposedly famous carrot cake. This is actually three layers of cake with the two bottom layers separated by a soft praline type icing and the rest with a cream cheese frosting. It is super moist and just chock full of pecans, carrots, golden raisins, coconut and, if you look closely at the picture, you will see some bits of green which means there is zucchini in there too. See, a whole days serving of fruit, nuts and vegetables in one slice of cake, what more could you want? Well, again, for me, frosting. You can even tell here it is a little light between the middle and top layer and across the top and side. I’m guessing they did this because cream cheese frosting can be super sweet, theirs kind of is, and that praline layer is pretty much sugar and nuts. While I like this, I didn’t love this. There is just so much going on in the cake it is more a mass of flavors that can override the carrot making this more a fruit and spice cake instead. Plus, I think I am used to other carrot cakes where the cake is darker, usually a touch more molasses or something.

A slice is gonna run you about $7 and a whoopie pie about $5. Both kind of worth it because they each offer their own amount of size and heft, thing which hit the sweet spot for a dessert for me. But if these cakes and whoopie don’t trip your trigger, they’ve got plenty of other options I’m sure you can gorge upon. Something I encourage you to do. Because binge eating without guilt is one of the things we still have left to indulge in amidst all the chaos and I’m gonna do my part to hold onto that!

On a small side note: you can actually ask for an extra side of frosting if you, like me, are not satisfied with the standard offering. There is always plenty to go around.