Melanie Thompson is a 13-year-old seventh grader at Indian Creek Middle School has been cooking since she first helped her great grandmother, Louis, in the kitchen when she was 2.

Cake ingredients:

2 cups sugar

1 cup Canola oil

4 eggs

2 cups self-rising flour

2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice

1 (15 oz) can of pumpkin

Cream Cheese frosting ingredients:

¼ cup butter

1 (8 oz) package cream cheese

1 box (16 oz) of confectioners sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla

To make cake combine oil, eggs and sugar. Mix in flour and spices. Stir in pumpkin and mix together well. Pour in greased round cake pans. Bake 35-40 minutes or until toothpick inserted in middle comes out clean. Cool in pans 10 minutes then turn onto cooling racks. Cool completely before frosting.
For cream cheese frosting, combine cream cheese, butter and vanilla. Then add confectioners sugar until smooth. Garnish with chopped pecans (optional).