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.

Spiced Pumpkin Cake pinnable image


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.





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