Cinderella's Hearth: Transforming Pumpkins with Kitchen Magic by Kelly Jarvis

“Without a doubt it is a great advantage to have intelligence, courage, good breeding, and common sense,” Charles Perrault says in his moral to Cinderella, but “even these may fail to bring you success, without the blessing of a godfather or a godmother.” In Perrault’s estimation, it is the fairy godmother who brings the magic to Cinderella’s tale, transforming lizards into footmen and turning a pumpkin from the garden into “a fine coach, gilded all over with gold.”

Pumpkins have their glory days in October and November when they are carved into jack-o-lanterns and displayed in cornucopias, but by December, when frost has settled over the landscape, even pumpkins need some fairy magic to restore their beauty. While I have never met someone who was able to turn a pumpkin into a gilded coach, I once had a fairy godneighbor who worked her magic in the kitchen, transforming the season’s leftover fruit into delicious pumpkin roll desserts.

Pumpkin, Pixabay

My fairy godneighbor’s name was Kelley, and though our names sounded the same, we were very different. Like Cinderella, I was not exactly suited to household chores, but Kelley was talented in the domestic arts. She took pity on me, signing me up for craft classes, helping me paint flowerpots to match our kitchen counters, and inviting me over her house one day to make dozens of pumpkin rolls. The rolls were a labor of love, and they were so delicious that they topped the list of my husband’s favorite treats. In Kelley’s hands, simple ingredients were transformed into a delectable dessert that has since become a staple of our holiday season.

Kelley moved away shortly after bestowing me with her magical lessons, and though we kept in touch for a few years, eventually we lost track of each other. Still, every year, when I use Kelley’s recipe to transform a can of pumpkin and some sugar into a yule log swirled with cream cheese icing, I feel she is with me, sprinkling her fairy dust over my ingredients so I don’t make any mistakes. Kelley taught me it is best to make several rolls at once, freezing the extra in tinfoil packages to open throughout the holiday season, so now my family eats pumpkin roll from Thanksgiving until Christmas, saving the best loaf to celebrate the Winter Solstice, the darkest night of the year when the light makes its promise to return.

Pumpkin Roll, Pixabay

I don’t think I will ever be a fairy godmother in the kitchen, but I offer Kelley’s recipe to you in the hopes that it may help you enchant an ordinary can of pumpkin into a seasonal treat you can share with a long-lost friend.

Kelley’s Pumpkin Roll Cake:

¾ cup all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon ground ginger

¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg

¼ teaspoon ground cloves (optional)

3 large eggs

1 cup granulated sugar

2/3 cup pumpkin puree

Kelley’s Cream Cheese Filling:

1 (8-ounce) brick of cream cheese, softened

1 cup powdered sugar

6 tablespoons butter, softened

I teaspoon vanilla extract (Kelley always said to measure vanilla with your heart)

Instructions:

1.       Preheat oven to 375 and line a cookie sheet or jelly roll pan with parchment paper, leaving an extra inch of parchment sticking up on all sides for easy removal. (I also mist the pan and parchment with cooking spray).

2.       Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and dry spices in a large bowl.

3.       Whisk eggs and sugar in a separate bowl until thick. Add in vanilla and pumpkin, whisk again, and fold the mixture into your dry ingredients.

4.       Spread batter into prepared pan and bake 13-15 minutes (or until top springs back when lightly touched). Carefully lift the parchment to turn your cake onto a sugar-dusted tea towel. Roll and let cool, periodically unrolling to release steam.

5.       While the cake is cooling, whisk together cream cheese, powdered sugar, butter, and vanilla until smooth. When the cake reaches room temperature, unroll and frost, rolling back up so that when you slice, you will see a swirled pattern. Dust with extra powdered sugar.

6.       Wrap in foil and refrigerate or freeze until you are ready to enjoy!

Kelly Jarvis is the Contributing Writer for The Fairy Tale Magazine. Her work has also been featured in A Moon of One’s Own, Baseball Bard, Blue Heron Review, Corvid Queen, Eternal Haunted Summer, Forget Me Not Press, Mermaids Monthly, The Chamber Magazine, The Magic of Us, and the World Weaver Press Anthology Mothers of Enchantment: New Tales of Fairy Godmothers. Her first novella, Selkie Moon, comes out in 2025. You can connect with her on Facebook (Kelly Jarvis, Author) or Instagram (@kellyjarviswriter) or find her at https://kellyjarviswriter.com/