Halloween has now come and gone and left behind a glut of pumpkins that no one seems to know what to do with! 18,000 tonnes of pumpkin are thrown away each year, which is such a crime as pumpkins are delicious in both sweet and savoury form.
My pumpkin spice cake is one of my autumnal go-to recipes. It's an easy, one-bowl recipe and has all the flavour of a carrot cake without you going to the trouble of grating carrots (one of my baking pet-hates, along with lining tins..). Coincidently, this cake is made in a bundt tin that doesn't need lining with paper, so this might be one of the most low-maintenance cakes ever.
To make pumpkin puree from scratch, simply boil or steam peeled chunks of pumpkin until tender, then blend to a puree. Simple! You'll probably have lots more than you'll need for this cake, but try a soup recipes (this one works well with pumpkin) or mix some of the puree into cheese sauce for mac and cheese - works a dream! I also love chunks of pumpkin stirred into curries or roasted in oil and salt as a great potato alternative.
This is a recipe from Twist that I recreated for Tastemade UK.
Pumpkin Spice Bundt Cake
Ingredients:
425g can of pumpkin puree
4 eggs
200ml vegetable oil
150ml milk
250g caster sugar
250g light brown sugar
500g plain flour
2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
For the topping:
200g icing sugar
Ground cinnamon and nutmeg, to dust
1. Preheat the oven to 160oC and prepare a 1.5l bundt tin by greasing well with butter and flouring lightly. As this cake has a high sugar content, it is more likely to caramelise and stick to the tin, so the layer of flour helps prevent this.
2. In a large mixing bowl, beat together the pumpkin puree, eggs, oil, milk and both sugars until they are well blended.
3. Using another bowl, combine the flour, bicarbonate of soda, salt and spices. Fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and mix until smooth, with no large lumps of flour remaining.
4. Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 50 minutes, or until a skewer inserted comes out clean. Leave the cake to cool for 10-15 minutes, or until the pan is cool enough to touch. Use a plastic spatula or knife and run it around the edges of the tin if the cake looks like it might be stuck. Invert onto a cooling rack and leave to cool completely before decorating.
5. For the topping, mix the icing sugar with a tablespoon of water to make a thick paste. Pipe a thick ring around the top of the cold bundt, then tap the rack firmly on the work surface to encourage it to start spreading and to drip down the edges. Dust with a little nutmeg and cinnamon before moving to a cake stand or large plate to serve. This cake will keep for 5-6 days and still be beautifully moist.