• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and line three 8×8-inch cake pans. Set aside.
• In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, pumpkin pie spice, baking powder, baking soda, and kosher salt.
• In a large bowl, with a hand mixer on medium speed, combine the eggs, oil, pumpkin puree, and vanilla extract.
• Add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. Using a hand mixer on low speed, mix until combined. You really just don’t want to see any speckles of flour. I like to scrape the bottom of the bowl with a spatula to make sure there aren’t any bits of flour hiding.
• Divide the batter evenly amongst the prepared cake pans (they should weigh about 467 grams each). Transfer the layers to the oven for 23 to 25 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean. Allow to cool in the pan for about 5 to 7 minutes. Then invert onto a cooling rack and cool until it’s room temperature. It’ll probably take a full hour.

To Make the Brown Butter Frosting:

• In a small saucepan, set over medium heat, add the 1/2 cup of butter. Once it’s melted, it will begin to foam up and bubble a bit. Allow it to cook until you begin to see lightly browned specks beginning to form. Give it a stir and cook until it’s browned. You should also start to smell its nutty aroma. Remove it from the pan and continue to stir to cool it down.
• Transfer it to a small bowl (freezer-safe) and place it in the freezer to chill, for about 20-25 minutes. We want it to be the texture of room-temperature butter (it can be a bit softer, that’s ok).
To speed up this process, place the bowl of brown butter in an ice bath and stir until it begins to firm up and become opaque.
• In a medium bowl, add the cooled brown butter and the 1¼ cup of room temperature butter. Then, sift in the powdered sugar and add the vanilla extract, salt, and heavy cream. With a hand mixer on medium speed, beat the frosting for about 3 minutes. The fluffiness from the heavy cream really lightens up this frosting so be sure to beat it for the full 3 minutes.

To Assemble and Decorate the Cake:

• In two small bowls, add about 2 tablespoons of frosting to each. You can eyeball this. One will be our pumpkins (orange) and another will be our stems (brown).
• If your frosting is super soft, add about 1 tablespoon of powdered sugar to each bowl and mix it in. This will help stiffen it up.
• Add a drop or two of orange food coloring to one frosting bowl. And add a drop or two of brown food coloring to the second frosting bowl. Mix until smooth. Transfer the orange frosting to a piping bag fitted with a small round piping tip.
• Transfer the brown frosting to a piping bag fitted with a (Wilton #1) tiny round piping tip.
• Place one cooled cake layer on a cake board. Add about 1/3 cup of brown butter frosting to the top of the first layer and smooth out into a thin, even layer (no more than ¼ inch thick). Place the second cake layer on top and repeat these steps.
• Place the third layer on top. Then, add a thin crumb coat of brown butter frosting to the cake and smooth the top and sides. Transfer the cake to the fridge to chill for about 20 minutes. Then add the final layer of brown butter frosting to the cake.
• To add the pumpkins, pipe on rounds of frosting. Add as many as you like. Make them any size you like, too. Dip your finger in a bit of water and tap the tops of the pumpkins to make them appear smoother.
• Pipe on a small hook shape at the top of each of the pumpkins. This will make it appear like they have a stem. You can slice up the cake and serve immediately or keep it in a cool area until ready to serve.