Pumpkin Cake

This pumpkin cake is beautiful with a great texture, and great colour!  I've found that with pumpkin cakes you really can't taste that there's pumpkin in them, it just gives the cake a nice small crumb and keeps everything moist.

This cake goes well with cinnamon, caramel or chocolate icing.  Check out how Sweetapolita styled this cake with drippy salted caramel, cream cheese icing and chocolate icing. 

Recipe adapted from: Sweetapolita
Ingredients - 3 layer 20 cm (8 inch) cake
265g white sugar
160g brown sugar
4 eggs
240mL vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla essence
400g pumpkin puree (you can used canned puree, however I cook and mash fresh pumpkin)
345g flour
1.5 tbsp baking powder
3 tsp ground cinnamon
1.5 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp salt

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 175 C (350 F).  If you're using fresh pumpkin, cook it and mash it up (I just chop the pumpkin up and microwave it with some water, then mash with a fork).  Set it aside to cool.  Skip this step if you're using canned pumpkin filling.

2. Beat the eggs, white sugar and brown sugar until pale and fluffy.

3. Add the oil and vanilla, beat until combined.  Add the pumpkin and mix until combined.

4. Mix the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and salt - then gradually add these dry ingredients to the rest of the batter.  Mix until everything's combined.

5. Butter three 22cm cake tins or equivalent, and line the bottoms with baking paper.

6. Evenly distribute the cake batter between the tins and bake for about 25 minutes, or until an inserted skewer comes out clean.

7. Let the cakes cool for about 10 minutes then invert the cakes onto wire racks to cool completely.

Finally, assemble your cake with the icing of your choice.  I baked some in friand shapes and left them plain (the texture of this cake is just so amazing!) - I've also made this cake in layers with cinnamon buttercream (see below), and I've made it with dark chocolate ganache too.

It's a great versatile recipe, I hope you enjoy it!