Spiced Pumpkin Cake

Spiced Pumpkin Cake- a moist pumpkin traybake cake topped with cream cheese icing and spiced with cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg. Perfect for serving at Bonfire Night or Halloween.

It's that time of year again, in the build up to Halloween and Bonfire Night, that we all start searching for 'pumpkin recipes' and 'things to make with pumpkin'. There's always the stand-by classics of Pumpkin Pie and Pumpkin Soup, but if you're bored of those, or looking for something different, then this Spiced Pumpkin Cake might do the trick. It's traybake style, so it's perfect for sharing at a Halloween or Bonfire Night party.

You might have bought a pumpkin this year, for carving, and are wondering whether you can use the flesh from inside your Halloween pumpkin to bake with. The answer is- not usually. The pumpkins that are sold for carving, tend to be the types with thinner skins, which makes them easier to carve. They are not known for having good flavour and texture for cooking or baking with. You can usually tell as they will be labelled with 'Carving Pumpkin' or something similar.

So, if you want to make something with pumpkin, your best bet is to find an eating pumpkin (quite tricky here in the UK), or use butternut squash as an alternative, or (my preference) buy the tinned pumpkin. It's available now in the UK from Sainsbury's, Tesco, Ocado and Amazon at around £1 per tin for the 'Baking Buddy' brand. If you do want to make your own puree with butternut squash or an eating pumpkin, there's a very simple method to try here: Make your own pumpkin puree

Whichever puree you use, it will make your Spiced Pumpkin Cake beautifully moist. To spice it, you could use mixed spice, but I personally prefer to use the individual spices of ginger, cinnamon and nutmeg so that it tastes more balanced. You can use this as a dessert and serve it warm with custard (absolutely delicious comfort food), or ice it and serve as a cake.

I have used a cream cheese icing because cream cheese and pumpkin is a match made in heaven, but you can easily switch for plain vanilla buttercream. For UK readers- If you've ever had problems with making cream cheese icing/frosting, you're not alone. Cream cheese is a bit of nightmare due to the UK version having a very high water content compared to the US.  The general consensus is that full-fat Philly or the Lidl own brand  cream cheese (also full-fat) are the closest to the US version and the least likely to give you runny slop! If you really want to go a step further with keeping it firm, you need to squeeze some water out of it too and keep it as cool as possible while making it.

Make Spiced Pumpkin Cake

You'll find a printable recipe card at the end of this post.

pumpkin, cake, Bonfire Night, Halloween

cake

American

Yield: 15Author: The Improving CookPin it

Spiced Pumpkin Cake

prep time: 15 minscook time: 40 minstotal time: 55 mins

Spiced Pumpkin Cake- a moist pumpkin traybake cake topped with cream cheese icing and spiced with cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg. Perfect for serving at Bonfire Night or Halloween.

ingredients:

For the cake:

• 425g tinned pumpkin puree
• 300g self-raising flour
• 300g light Muscavado sugar
• 200g melted butter
• 4 eggs
• 1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1 tbsp lemon juice

For the icing:

• 50g butter, softened
• 25g icing sugar
• 250g full-fat cream cheese

instructions:

1. Melt the butter in a small pan and then pour into a measuring jug to cool a little.

2. Put the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, bicarb, salt, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg) into a large mixing bowl and stir until it's all combined. 

3. Mix the eggs and the lemon juice in with the melted butter briskly.

4. Mix the liquid into the dry ingredients until you have a thick cake batter.

5. Add the pumpkin puree and mix through.

6. Pour into a greased or lined 30 x 20 traybake tin and smooth with a spatula until it's even.

7. Pop into the oven at 180 (160 fan, gas mark 4) for 35-40 minutes. From 30 minutes, keep a close eye on it. It should be golden and springy, similar to ginger cake.

8. Allow to cool for 5 minutes and either turn out or lift onto a cooling rack.

9. To make the icing, blend the butter until smooth. Tip any residual water out of the the cream cheese and then add to the butter, along with the icing sugar, and blend gently until combined. Do not over-mix or you will make it too runny. Pop it in the fridge while the cake cools.

10. When the cake is completely cool, use a spatula to smooth the icing over and then cut into squares.

NOTES:

As it's aa moist cake, it will keep in a tin very well for several days. If it's warm weather, I would keep it in the fridge due to the cream cheese.

calories
345

fat (grams)
19

sat. fat (grams)
12

carbs (grams)
38

protein (grams)
5

sugar (grams)
4

Fibre (in grams)
1

Created using The Recipes Generator