“Amelia,” my mom looked up at me from the oven, her eyes with a frazzled gleam to them, “Just to warn you, I might cry if this isn’t good.”

I believed her. Fifty minutes later, after I’d gone up to my room to do some homework, I came back down to the kitchen and laid eyes on the pudding cake, sitting innocently on the counter. There were missing portions that indicated it had already been tasted, so I grabbed a spoon and thought I’d try a bite, too. It smelled amazing, but so does soap, so I approached with caution. This idea of my mother’s: to make our chocolate pudding cake into a pumpkin pudding cake with a delicious orange sauce from a gingerbread cake (anyone interested in this recipe?) was very experimental.

The experiment was risky, but we are fearless, and I am never one to turn down a treat. When I finally took a bite, I almost gasped. It was like a giant, sticky, soft pumpkin chocolate chip cookie. The orange sauce provided the perfect balance of subtle acidity and I immediately put my spoon down to find mom and tell her how incredible it was. I interrupted her phone call to give her a look and she said, beaming and knowingly, because she knew it was good,

“Do you love it?”

“Yes!”

Then I eagerly went back to the kitchen for more, and now we’re giving you the opportunity to do the same.

A note about gluten free: If you use a pre-processed oat flour (we like Bob’s Red Mill), this cake will taste exactly the same as the glutenous version. If you grind oats yourself, the texture will be coarser, but still delicious nonetheless.

Pumpkin Pudding Cake with Orange Sauce

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter (1 stick)

• 1 cup white sugar

• 1 1/2 cups flour (or replace with 1 1/2 cups oat flour for a gluten free version)

• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

• 1 teaspoon salt

• 3/4 to 1 teaspoon cinnamon

• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

• A pinch of ground allspice (optional, for those who like pumpkin goods spicier)

• 3/4 cup buttermilk

• Two eggs

• 2 teaspoons vanilla

• 1 15-oz can pumpkin

• 1/2 cup (heaping!) chocolate chips, optional but highly recommended

Sauce/topping:

• 1 cup brown sugar

• 3 Tbs frozen orange juice concentrate, softened

• 2 C boiling water

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Place butter in 9 x 13 pan and put in the oven so the butter can melt as the oven heats, which also greases the pan.  (Alternatively, you can bake this in two 8-inch round pans, if you want to share with another household.

For the sauce, set aside brown sugar and, if you haven’t yet, remove OJ concentrate from the freezer.

Whisk white sugar, flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and optional allspice in a large bowl.

Remove the melted butter from the oven and, in a quart-size or larger Pyrex measuring cup, whisk it together with the buttermilk, eggs, vanilla, and pumpkin. Pour over the flour mixture and stir with a rubber spatula until just combined. Add chocolate chips (optional) and stir again, only until combined. Spread the batter into the cake pan. (if you used oat flour, you might want to let it sit for 15 minutes before proceeding.)

Sprinkle brown sugar evenly over the top of the cake.

Put the orange juice concentrate into the Pyrex cup (it’s okay that there are pumpkin/egg remnants in there), add two cups boiling water, stir, then pour evenly over the top of cake. Do not stir once this is on top of the cake!

Bake for 42 to 45 minutes. If your oven runs hot, check it at 35 minutes. The cake can still jiggle a bit when it’s done, but it should act more like cake than like pudding when you gently shake the pan. Let it rest for 15 minutes, then serve with vanilla ice cream. It’s also delicious at room temperature. (When we used a slightly smaller pan, we had to bake for 55 minutes.)