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!
This cake is a favourite in our household. It's sweet, syrupy, and moist, but not too heavy. The pumpkin gives the cake a great texture.
Recipe adapted from: Women's Weekly Cakes & Slices Cookbook
Ingredients - 23 cm (9 inch) square cake or equivalent
250g butter
2 tbsp orange zest
2 tbsp lemon zest
195g caster sugar
3 eggs
310g flour
4 tsp baking powder
1 cup mashed pumpkin (about 350g)
Ingredients - syrup
6 tbsp orange juice
6 tbsp lemon juice
500g white sugar
Method
1. Preheat your oven to 180C (355F) and line a 23cm square pan or equivalent with baking paper. I also prepare my pumpkin at this point by chopping it up and microwaving it with a splash of water until it's cooked, then mashing it with a fork and setting it aside to cool.
2. Cream the butter, sugar and zest until light and fluffy.
3. Separate the eggs. Beat the egg yolks into the butter mixture. Put the egg whites in another bowl for use later.
4. Mix half the pumpkin into the batter, then half the flour. Once that's combined, mix in the rest of the pumpkin and the flour along with the baking powder.
5. Whip the egg whites to soft peaks. Mix a spoonful into the pumpkin batter to lighten it, then gently fold the rest of the egg whites into the batter.
6. Spread the batter into your prepared cake tin, and bake for about an hour. An inserted toothpick in the middle of the cake should come out clean.
7. Make your syrup! Combine all the syrup ingredients in a saucepan. Stir until the sugar dissolves, then bring to the boil and simmer for 2 minutes, without stirring. Make sure you keep a sharp eye on this as it can tend to boil over!
8. Once the cake has been baked, pour the syrup over the cake in the tin. You can also poke some holes in the top to let the syrup really get in there.
9. Invert the cake onto a serving plate once the syrup has soaked in. Then, pour the remainder of the syrup onto the cake.
This cake is glorious when served warm!
This recipe comes by way of one of the teachers I had on camp in high school, Ms Bahn. She introduced myself and my friends to pumpkin pie. This recipe is delicious and homey, very spicy (as in ginger/cinnamon etc, not chili) and easy to make as well! The recipe makes a very large volume, so if you only need a little pie for the family you could probably halve the recipe.
Ingredients - makes enough to feed ten people
2 cups cooked pumpkin, mashed
1 tbsp vanilla essence
3 eggs
500g white sugar
1 tbsp salt
3 tbsp flour
4 cups milk
Ground cinnamon and ginger to taste
Puff/shortcrust pastry
Method
1. Preheat the oven to 190 C (375 F). Cook the pumpkin and mash it. I steamed my pumpkin and just used a fork to mash it up.
2. Mix the vanilla, eggs, sugar, salt, flour and milk into the pumpkin. Flavour it to your liking with ground cinnamon and ginger.
3. Prepare your chosen receptacles with puff pastry or shortcrust pastry. I used some shortcrust pastry and a square casserole dish as well as a cupcake tin. Make sure that you swipe the dishes/tins with a bit of butter before you put the pastry in because they do tend to stick!
4. Pour the pumpkin mixture into the pastry-lined receptacles and bake. If you're doing a large pie (like mine in a casserole dish), you'll need about 1 hour but the littler ones in the cupcake tin will only take about 30 minutes.
Depending on your oven and the size of your pies, this will vary so use your own judgement! When it's done, the pie will be solid but should jiggle a bit when the dish is moved.
(You can make mini pumpkin pies in individual souffle ramekins for easy eating.)
5. Let the pie/s cool and consume at your leisure. They taste good cold out of the fridge, as well as when they're heated up or straight out of the oven.
Yum!
