Pumpkin Downcakes Topped With Bleeding Figs

Hello my pumpkins =)

It's been a bit of a mad week, what with helping organise Food Bloggers Connect, wrapping up the final shoot for Mooli's, and trying to get this post ready - not to mention the fact that the first batch of photos I took for this post all ended up in my trash can! It's safe for you to assume that I'm surviving on no sleep at the moment, and I have to say it's got my creative juices in overdrive!

Before I go on, I just wanted to say a big 'Welcome & Thank You!' to all my new RSS feed readers. For some reason, over the last few weeks a whole lot of you thought it would be a good idea to subscribe to my blog - I'm absolutely thrilled and I hope I can live up to your expectations! To all those that are not sure about RSS and would like to know what it is, have a look HERE. To anyone that would like an alternative to RSS (all my latest blog posts delivered directly to your email address) please click HERE. 

I'd been cracking my skull thinking about what to do with all these pumpkins for a Halloween-inspired blog post - I needed to capture that gorgeous orange! I knew that figs were also in season and I hadn't eaten any yet this year. I also wanted to make something that looked slightly gory (yet hopefully appetising at the same time!) without having to necessarily draw or carve out a face on a pumpkin. I just happened to catch the 'Alien' movie on TV the other night and, well, what can I say? I was totally inspired!

I decided on a light, fluffy and very moist pumpkin cake recipe, using muscavado sugar instead of normal sugar, chopped figs instead of the usual raisins and sultanas, and with freshly grated organic pumpkins instead of the canned version. Oh, and freshly drained kitten's blood* for the red sauce - yum! 

Continue reading for the recipe...