Halloween pumpkin cake
Cooking time
Prep: 20 mins Cook: 30 minsSkill level
EasyServings
Cuts into 15 generous portionsLike carrot cake? Then try using up your leftover pumpkin in this clever traybake for Halloween
Nutrition and extra info
Additional info
- Freezable
Nutrition per serving (15 slices)
- kcalories
- 408
- protein
- 5g
- carbs
- 52g
- fat
- 21g
- saturates
- 13g
- fibre
- 1g
- sugar
- 37g
- salt
- 1.33g
Ingredients
For the cake
- 300g self-raising flour
- 300g light muscovado sugar
- 3 tsp mixed spice
- 2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 175g sultanas
- ½ tsp salt
- 4 eggs, beaten
- 200g butter, melted
- zest 1 orange
- 1 tbsp orange juice
- 500g (peeled weight) pumpkin or butternut squash flesh, grated
For drenching and frosting
- 200g pack soft cheese
- 85g butter, softened
- 100g icing sugar, sifted
- zest 1 orange and juice of half
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Method
- Heat oven to 180C/fan 160C/gas 4. Butter and line a 30 x 20cm baking or small roasting tin with baking parchment. Put the flour, sugar, spice, bicarbonate of soda, sultanas and salt into a large bowl and stir to combine. Beat the eggs into the melted butter, stir in the orange zest and juice, then mix with the dry ingredients till combined. Stir in the pumpkin. Pour the batter into the tin and bake for 30 mins, or until golden and springy to the touch.
- To make the frosting, beat together the cheese, butter, icing sugar, orange zest and 1 tsp of the juice till smooth and creamy, then set aside in the fridge. When the cake is done, cool for 5 mins then turn it onto a cooling rack. Prick it all over with a skewer and drizzle with the rest of the orange juice while still warm. Leave to cool completely.
- If you like, trim the edges of the cake. Give the frosting a quick beat to loosen, then, using a palette knife, spread over the top of the cake in peaks and swirls. If you’re making the cake ahead, keep it in the fridge then take out as many pieces as you want 30 mins or so before serving. Will keep, covered, for up to 3 days in the fridge.
Recipe from Good Food magazine, October 2007
Comments, questions and tips
Comments
Made this recipe with the kids and they absolutely loved it, despite claiming beforehand that there was no way that pumpkin cake could be nice. The cake was lovely and moist and very easy to make. The only complaint was that the frosting was a too runny, but this can be easily resolved. Will definitely be making this again.
Baked this tonight with my children 4 and 7 - they loved making and eating it - although my daughter first said that she would never eat cake with butternut squash!!
Did not have any oranges so used a lemon instead. Also I did not have enough butternut squash so made the weight up with a carrot.
I used slightly less sugar and it is still more than sweet enough
But allover a lovely moist, yummy cake. Not so keen on the raisins. Would probably replace them with some walnuts next time.
Lovely; mine wasn't dense at all. It was lovely and fluffy and spongy but moist. I turned them into cupcakes and they baked in 25 min.
I used plain flour and a teaspoon of baking powder alongside the baking soda and the remainder of the ingredients.
I added more cinnamon and omitted the orange juice but added the zest.
Used regular pumpkin. Also made the topping out of greek yogurt and icing sugar; they kind of had a more brunch muffin feel rather than desert feel as i didn't find them too sweet.
This cake is an absolute winner and delicious!
I would agree with many people's comments where the cake should be baked for longer - around the 45mins mark.
I too found the volumes for the icing made it quite runny. I tried the following amounts when making the icing for the second time which worked better:
125g soft cheese
50g butter
300g icing sugar
Dash of orange juice
Zest from ½ an orange
I make this cake several times a year with both pumpkin & butternut squash. It's always a huge hit & I like to surprise people with what's in it! If you like carrot cake then you will LOVE this!
It ALWAYS needs longer cooking time than stated so keep checking on it. I've also had problems with the frosting but it works better with full fat cheese & remember to refrigerate it.
This cake was asbolutely fantastic and went down very well with myhusband and daughters work colleagues. However, I did have trouble with the topping as it was very runny and wouldnt set. I ended up using 4 times the amount of icing sugar, which made it very sweet. Dont know if it was my fault or the recipe but would still make the cake again.
I've made this twice in the last week! Everyone at work loves it. The first time was with leftover carving pumpkin, and this time was with a harlequin squash (exactly 500g after peeling etc). As many have said it does take longer than 30 mins in the oven, mine take about 60-70 mins, so i've been covering in tin foil to stop the top from burning at about 30 mins in. Yummy though, may become a staple cake!