I hope one of you wonderful cooks can help me. I’ve never cooked a thing in my life, other than grilled cheese in my G. F. Grill. I doubt that counts as cooking.

Friends are coming over tomorrow to make 100 pumpkin bars and 100 pumpkin cookies and I have to shop for the ingredients - which are:

Canned pumpkin
Butter
Eggs
Milk
Spice cake mix

All the spice cake mixes and yellow cake mixes contain Yellow #5 and #6 and one of my friends is allergic to those. Can I substitute a white cake mix and add pumpkin pie spice? If so, how much?

Any advice will be appreciated.

Sorry that I don't know about substituting white cake mixes and adding spices, although that may be a satisfactory substitute in your recipe, however

this spice cake mix lists ingredients without colorants: http://www.namastefoods.com/products/cg ... Id=4&Id=21

and

this apple spice muffin mix lists ingredients without colorants:
http://www.bobsredmill.com/spice-apple- ... n-mix.html.

You don't say where you live, but these 2 brands are usually available through higher end groceries (Gelson's, Bristol Farms) and/or health food stores.

geekygirl, I have a couple questions...

Is making a cake from scratch a possibility?
What size cake were you planning on making (such as 9x13 or round layers)?

One reason I ask is the pumpkin bar recipe I've posted here is about as easy as it gets. It's basically a very moist pumpkin spice cake. Aside from the pan called for in the recipe, it can also be made in a 9x13x2 pan and just baked a little longer.

I would make cake from scratch. All a cake mix is is flour, sugar and baking powder/and or baking soda. You still have to add eggs and milk. It takes just a few minutes to do it yourself, and it's cheaper and better without all the added chemicals. Here's a recipe for Spicy Pumpkin Loaves from Sunset:
6 eggs
4 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups oil (like canola)
1 29 oz can pumpkin
5 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tablespoon baking soda
1 tablespoon each allspice and cinnamon (cloves and nutmeg are good also, you
could sub that for the allspice)
1 1/2 cups cups chopped walnuts (you could leave that out)

Preheat oven to 350. In large bowl, lightly beat eggs. Add sugar, oil and pumpkin, mix well. In another bowl, mix everything else except the nuts. Mix well. Add to pumpkin mixture and stir just till blended. Don't overmix. Stir in walnuts.
This recipe makes 4 41/2 by 8 1/2 inch loaf cakes or 12 3 1/2 by 5 inch. I'm sure you could also make it in round or square cake pans. Grease or oil your pans, dust with a little flour and shake out the excess flour. Fill each pan about 1/2 inch from top. Bake at 350 till toothpick inserted in center come out clean (no crumbs clinging to it.) Depending on pan and you oven, this could be half an hour to an hour and 10 minutes. This should give you the general idea, even if you look for another recipe.

I saw a recipe in the November issue of Everyday Food for Pumpkin-Spice Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Icing. It sounds like it's a tasty, moist cake...I like the addition of buttermilk, too. It could easily be made into a cake vs. cupcakes. I'm going to have to give this a try...

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Recipes/recipe?id=12210122

geekygirl, as a non-cook, what did you choose to do about the spice cake mix?

For what occasion did you and your friends need to make 100 pumpkin bars and 100 pumpkin cookies?

Thank you so much, MsMarm. I googled namastefoods and found the cake mixes at Whole Foods in Bev Hills. I bought 15, all they had.

Champagne - Making a cake from scratch isn’t a possibility. All that flour, sugar and stuff would add to the confusion with 6 cooks. Your pumpkin bar recipe holds a special place in my recipe file. A friend made it at my house after it was posted last year and it was wonderful. It was gone by the end of the night.

The recipe on the ABC site for Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes looks great. I copied it for my pumpkin folder.

Gardenpoet – the recipe you posted looks very rich with 6 eggs. It sounds like it would be good for special company. (Of course, since I don’t cook the company would have to come early and bake it. ) Cut and pasted it right into my special pumpkin folder. Thank you.

MsMarm – My friend is taking them to work tomorrow. Her promotion to V.P. requires her to bring dessert for 50 people, or maybe more. She thought a bunch of us getting together to bake would be fun.

Fun?? 100 huge frosted cookies and maybe 75 frosted pumpkin bars.

Friends come to my house because I have a big kitchen, 6 burner cook top and 2 ovens and a Cuisinart Toaster Oven that can handle cookies. Plus a big island that can handle a crowd. So wasted on me as I live alone and go out or call for delivery. If I’m alone I just munch on raw celery and carrots.

I understand about the cake. I'm so pleased you like the pumpkin bars.

Geekygirl, basic pumpkin pie spices: cinnamon, ginger,nutmeg,cloves. You can also buy premixed pumpkin pie spice in the baking section of any store or by mail order at Penzey's spices.

These will also work in pumpkin bread, pumpkin bars, pumpkin custard or pumpkin sweet anything.