Beautiful moist pumpkin cake with maple cream cheese frosting! A very easy, very forgiving recipe. Nothing gives cakes colour, texture and flavour like pumpkin!

Ingredients

Pumpkin puree options
1 2/3 cups fresh pumpkin puree , I use this (Note 1)
15 oz / 425g canned pure pumpkin , 1 can (Note 1)
Other cake batter ingredients
4 large eggs 55-60g/2oz each), at room temperature
1 2/3 cups white sugar (or caster/superfine sugar, Note 2)
1 cup vegetable or canola oil (or other neutral flavoured oil)
2 cups plain/all-purpose flour
4 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon powder
1 tsp cooking / kosher salt (Note 3)
Frosting
6 oz / 180g cream cheese block, at room temperature (Note 4)
1 cup / 225g unsalted butter , softened
1 tsp vanilla extract
4 cups soft icing sugar / powdered sugar , sifted (Note 5)
Finishing
1/3 – 1/2 cup maple syrup (don’t be shy!)
1/2 cup pecans , roughly chopped

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F (160°C fan-forced). Spray and line a large pan around 9 x 13″ / 23 x 33cm with baking paper with overhang. (Note 6)
Batter – In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugar, oil and pumpkin. Add remaining ingredients and mix well.
Bake – Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake for 40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Cool for 10 minutes before turning out onto cooling rack to cool completely (~ 2 hours) before frosting.
Frosting – Spread frosting on then use the back of a spoon to make swirly dents. Drizzle over maple syrup, concentrating on the dents to create maple syrup pools! Sprinkle with pecans. Then serve.
Frosting
Cream butter – Place the cream cheese and butter in a bowl. Beat for 2 minutes until smooth and fluffy.
Add the icing sugar in 3 batches, starting the beater on low after each addition to avoid a snowstorm. Once incorporated, turn the beater up to high and beat for 3 minutes or until the frosting is light and fluffy. Beat in vanilla. Use frosting immediately.

Notes

1. Using pureed fresh pumpkin makes a cake with better pumpkin flavour. Use 800g – 1kg / 1.6 – 2 lb pumpkin. Peel, remove seeds, cut into large chunks. Put in boiling water and cook for 10 minutes or until very soft. Drain, leave in colander set over the hot pot on the turned off stove to steam dry and fully cool (around 30 minutes). Then blitz to puree (I use a stick blender) and measure out 1 2/3 cups (400g) and use per recipe.
Canned pumpkin is a popular canned vegetable product in America. You can sometimes find it in the international section of stores that carry American goods. It’s actually very good – it’s just pure pureed pumpkin.While I’d never use some canned vegetable products, I’ll happily use canned pumpkin.
2. Sugar – This can be cut down to 1 1/4 cups if you’d like it slightly less sweet.
3. Salt – I know this looks like a lot but it really brings out the pumpkin flavour in this cake. Be sure to use cooking / kosher salt (coarse salt in the UK). If you only have table salt then reduce to 1/2 teaspoon.
4. Cream cheese – If you can only find the spreadable tub sort which is softer, you’ll likely need to add more icing sugar.
5. Icing sugar – Australia, be sure to use soft icing sugar not pure icing sugar (which sets hard).
6. Cake shape – This cake is so moist and extremely versatile. Make it as a round cake, bundt cake, loaf pan, muffins (25 min).
7. Recipe source – A fantastic recipe received back in 2016 from a regular reader, the wonderful Dorothy from Tennessee!
8. Storage – This cake will stay fresh for 5 days in the fridge. Bring to room temp before serving.
Nutrition assuming 16 servings, including frosting.
Nutrition
Serving: 116g | Calories: 431cal | Carbohydrates: 52.3g | Protein: 3.4g | Fat: 24.3g | Saturated Fat: 10.2g | Cholesterol: 67mg | Sodium: 348mg | Potassium: 108mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 41g | Vitamin A: 3750IU | Vitamin C: 0.8mg | Calcium: 30mg | Iron: 1.3mg