Pumpkin makes cakes soft and tender with a glowing orange colour in a way nothing else can! This Pumpkin Cake is perfectly spiced and comes with a tangy cream cheese frosting. The only thing that could make it better? Maple syrup. So I added it!
Pumpkin cake
This is a pumpkin cake recipe for people who want:
an easy, foolproof recipe (just wait until you see how simple it is!);
a cake with excellent pumpkinness* that’s not overwhelmed by the use of excessive store-bought spice mixes;
a crumb that’s springy, soft and moist, rather than tight/dense or airy/delicate (like angel cake);
a big cake to feed lots of people without the deft required to cut tall layer cakes into 16 tiny slivers; and
a cake with excellent frosting-to-cake ratio. Specifically, a cream cheese maple frosting. A dreamy combination with pumpkin!
So if all that sounds good to you, read on!
* I am not sure that’s a word but it seems fitting here.
Ingredients in Pumpkin Cake
Here’s what you need to make this cake.
Pumpkin puree options
I use fresh because it tastes better and takes 8 seconds to puree. Plus, canned pumpkin isn’t readily available here in Australia. 🙂 But canned works perfectly fine!
Canned pumpkin is a convenient option if you can get it and it works perfectly for this cake. But if you use pureed fresh pumpkin, you’ll be rewarded with a better tasting cake! It’s just a plain fact that freshly cooked pumpkin tastes better than something that’s been sitting in a can for months / years. Yes, we made and compared them side by side. 🙂
Use what works for you!
To make your own pumpkin puree, just boil chunks of pumpkin for 10 minutes or until very tender. Then blitz – it literally takes 8 seconds.
Pumpkin cake batter
Here are the other ingredient you need for the batter:
Flour – Plain / all-purpose flour. Self raising flour (also called self-rising flour) will work but it won’t rise as much. I haven’t tried this cake with gluten-free flour.
Oil – Any neutral flavoured oil like canola and vegetable oil. Using oil instead of butter keeps this cake moist. Why? Because butter firms up at room temperature whereas oil does not. So cakes made with oil are more moist. However, the trade-off is that butter tastes better than oil. In this cake, we’ve got other flavours at play here – the pumpkin and cinnamon. So I don’t miss the butter!
Baking powder – This is what makes the cake rise. As a side note, the original version of this cake used a combination of baking soda and baking powder. However, over the years, I’ve found that using only baking powder gives the cake a softer crumb. Plus, we cut out one ingredients. 🙂
Cinnamon – Flavour! Classic combination with pumpkin.
Sugar – Regular white sugar, or caster sugar / superfine sugar.
Large eggs at room temperature, which means eggs that are 55-60g/2oz each sold in cartons labelled “large eggs”. They need to be at room temperature, not fridge cold, so they blend into the ingredients better. More information on the right eggs for baking here!
Salt – Just a touch, to bring out the other flavours in this cake. Standard baking practice these days. 🙂
Cream cheese frosting
There is no better frosting for pumpkin cake! Here’s what you need:
Cream cheese – use BLOCK, not the spreadable cream cheese in tubs (too soft). If you can only get the spreadable cream cheese, add extra icing sugar to correct the consistency.
Softened unsalted butter – softened but not super soft / borderline melting.
Icing sugar aka powdered sugar – 🇦🇺 Australia, use soft icing sugar, NOT pure icing sugar (which is used for things like royal icing ie sets hard).
Vanilla extract – For flavour.
Maple syrup – UGH, forgot to put it in the photo! This is for drizzling on top. I wanted to put it in the frosting but it made the frosting too loose.
How to make Pumpkin Cake
WHY CAN’T ALL CAKES BE THIS EASY???!!
Whisk wet – Whisk the eggs, oil, sugar and pumpkin puree.
Add dry – Add the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt then whisk until combined. Batter. Done!
Bake in a 23 x 33 / 13 x 9″ lined pan (or thereabouts) at 180°C/350°F (160°C fan-forced) for 40 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. See the video for my easy way to line the pan!
Frosting – While the cake is cooling, make the frosting! Just beat the cream cheese and butter for a minute on high until creamy. Then add the icing sugar (powdered sugar) in 3 batches, starting the beater on low to avoid a snowstorm. Once it’s incorporated, crank the beater up to high and beat for 2 to 3 minutes until the frosting is fluffy!
Slather the frosting on the cooled cake, and use the back of a spoon to make swirly dents for maple syrup to pool in.
Drizzle with maple syrup, as much as you want / dare, then sprinkle liberally with roughly chopped pecans.
And now it’s time to dig in!
Making this cake might be the best decision you make in October. It’s totally straight forward. Your kitchen will smell amazing. It’s big enough to share with those you deem worthy.
And that moment when you take the first bite of that soft cake loaded with beautiful pumpkin flavour, mingling with that tangy cream cheese frosting mixed with rivers of maple syrup and the littering of soft pecans….
I challenge you to stop at one piece. (Even if you cut yourself a very, very big one). – Nagi x
Watch how to make it
Fresh or canned pumpkin? I’m in the fresh camp!
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Pumpkin Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
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.
Recipe Notes:
Nutrition Information:
Originally published in November 2016. Recipe slightly improved (I now only use baking powder as I find it makes the cake rise more evenly), recipe writing improved (I’ve come a long way in 7 years!), sparkling new photos and a brand new video with me IN it!
More pumpkin recipes
Life of Dozer
Today – visiting a local community garden just a few minutes from home called Happy Hens. What an extraordinary oasis! 100% volunteer run in a beautiful location by the water, filled with an abundance of herbs and vegetables. Everyone is welcome – so locals, drop by to see it and say g’day! Might even see you there. 🙂 ~ Nagi & Dozer xx
And from the original publication date in 2016:
a) Cruel
b) Cute
c) Funny
d) All of the above
I made this cake on the weekend, added a pinch of nutmeg, clove and ginger….the cake was fantastic! I tried a piece without frosting and you could easily get away without. I agree with some of the other comments, there was a lot of frosting. I froze 1/2 for the next time I bake this cake. Definitely recommend this recipe!
I made this for a family gathering and it was a hit! I altered the frosting a little bit, but only because I was being lazy. Instead of 6oz cream cheese I used 8 since that is how it comes. I also added a couple of dribbles extra of vanilla. Everyone said it was sweet, but didn’t blow your head off. Just perfect.
Reduced the recipe to 9 serves to fit my smaller square tin. Has turned out beautifully! Waiting for it to cool so I can put the cream cheese frosting on. I found a recipe for frosting which includes some maple syrup so that’s what I’m using. Thanks for a great recipe Nagi!
Great cake. Family commented it needs more spices, nutmeg, cloves, all spice.
Was it your intent to use less than block of cream cheese, ours are 250g?
Used fresh pumpkin, baked it in oven at 400 for 25 min, cut in half, seed, place on cookie sheet, helps caramelize sugars, less watery, skin removed with fork.
Delicious, as is everything I’ve ever cooked from RTE. This was overly sweet to my palate, which I think was mostly down to the frosting, so next time, I’ll replace that. The cake is a real winner though!
Well, this is a very first for me,,,a Nagi failure! Something is wrong with this recipe. Too much oil? A doughy mess, and not spicy at all, No flavor. Huge waste of 4 eggs and a whole cup of oil. Too bad!
Oh that’s a shame Phyllis. It is a rather wet batter. It baked up beautifully for me following the recipes exactly as written. It’s no fun when you feel you’ve wasted all your baking supplies.
I made two of these cakes yesterday. So delicious with the sweet pie pumpkins from the garden and maple syrup from our neighbour. We live in an area where there are doxens of syrup producers. We had way too many pumkins and the thought of nothing but pumpkin pies or muffins was scarey.
PS Will there ever be RTE merchandise?
I made this today and it is absolutely delicious! So easy but tastes incredible – perfect for feeding lots of people. Another excellent recipe x
I love pumpkin and this is so moist and delicious ! I reduced the sugar (thanks for that note), and made less frosting and it was perfect for us. I like the parchment paper trick to get it out of the pan, too. Will definitely make it again !
Excellent! Cooked in a large rectangle pan for 40mins. I added some ginger powder for that extra spice. I’d recommend halving the frosting, way too much.
This cake is AMAZING 🤩. I am obsessed with it. I used GF flour and it is perfect. So moist and so easy to make. So tasty. Everyone is enjoying it. My new favourite.
I was reading the comments and wondering if this would work with GF flour, so thanks Rebecca. I’ll give it a go! 🙂
Oh my God. The most edible cake I have ever baked. I used gluten free plain flour & cut down the sugar in batter. The frosting was “to die for”.
Thank you so much for such a simple and brilliant recipe
I can’t wait to try this recipe! What kind of maple syrup do you recommend? I always struggle to find a good maple syrup here in Australia, most of them are in fact maple flavoured.
Hi Denise, the major supermarkets have pure maple syrup in Australia. The one in my fridge at the moment is 100% pure organic maple syrup. The brand is Pacific Organics, but I’m sure there are one or two others that are not maple flavoured. I usually find them near the jelly.
I made this cake with gluten free flour. I also added 1/2 tsp of bicarbonate soda. It was absolutely delicious!
It is fall in New England. I made this and it was wonderful for a rainy, cold day. We enjoyed it very much.
Yum, can’t wait to make this cake again! Of course Dozer is cute in your sunglasses, but why haven’t you bought him his own? They make wonderful Doggie sunglasses that fit much better than Mom’s do. LOL.
Great slab cake and crowd pleaser.
I made it with roasted pumpkin and cut back the sugar. Still tasted great.
A recipe to keep for sure.
More slab cakes please.
Hi Nagi,
This looks delicious and when I return home it will be on the top of my to do list.
When I boil pumpkin it is very wet. In the video your pumpkin looks like a kabocha squash and it makes a nice solid looking puree. So I am just checking on what type of pumpkin you use, please and thank you.
Hi Julie,
Thank you for your comment. We use kent / jap pumpkin for this recipe. Let us know how it turns out!
Thank you for such a quick reply and from your response I did some research and learned that Kabocha squash and Kent pumpkins are the same thing, they just have different names dependent on the continent you live on! Kabocha or Kent are so much nicer to cook with than what we traditionally call a pumpkin here in Canada. 😃
Thank you
Hi Nagi, thanks for this recipe, I love pumpkin in cakes and muffins! And this looks like a beautiful recipe. Can I ask a question though… is the amount of butter in the cream cheese icing really 225g?? It seems like an awful lot in relation to the amount of cream cheese… just wondering. It looks wonderful, will definitely be trying, thank you again. Always enjoy reading your posts and all the recipes. God bless you ❤️
I’m so sorry I like the old style video better, but well it seems only me,
Anyway I really thank you for the recipes that fail proof, even failed it always still good taste, thank you Nagi&Dozer🤗😊
Don’t apologise! Everyone has their own tastes 🙂 I was really going back and forth trying to decide which style of videos to use. Can I ask why you prefer the old style? Is it because it is cleaner and neater, very focussed on tutorial style cooking of the food without me in it causing distractions? I absolutely promise I will not be offended! I am genuinely wanting feedback because my video format is still evolving! – N x
Sorry Nagi, as much as I love seeing and hearing you, the old style really gets up and close to the ingredients so I can really see how they should be prepared. Since I’ve been following you, I have used some ingredients I never even knew existed, let alone know how to prepare. There is one caveat though, if the old way is much more time and labor intensive, I will gladly enjoy the new way; my guess is that you burn the candle on both ends and we don’t want you burnt out.
Hi Nag!
Hope you don’t mind, I’m jumping in with some feedback also. I really like the new format for simple videos like “a great way to cook frozen peas” but I also like the old videos, particularly when trying something new when I might like to see the consistency of a sauce up close for instance, or just kind of review a a more complicated recipe before I get cooking. I think the ideal would be to mix it up. I was also glad to see you out in front of the camera more! Feels a bit like we are cooking in Nag’s kitchen! 😁Which is kind of nice/fun. At the end of the day, some of us have been watching your videos like clock-work for years now…it may be that we need to adapt to new things 😁
Btw, made the lemon cheesecake from your cookbook tonight –
Ah-mazing!! Definately a keeper.
Cheers,
Holly xx
I do also prefer your old style videos. Simple and easy to follow!
Hi Nagi, that was the first video that I’ve seen in this format and I’m a bit like Alison. Your old videos were just factual and quick to watch before cooking or baking the recipe. However, it was nice to see you and Dozer too. Perhaps just send us a nice catch up video from time to time to show us how you and Dozer, plus JB and the staff at your charity kitchen are all doing. I really enjoyed the insight into it especially when you were on tv here in Australia. The truth is that people visit your site for the recipes, but they also keep coming back to catch up with you and Dozer (IMHO)
I liked your old videos because they were short and sweet without any extra padding. Your new ones are fun, it’s good to hear and see you and you, but for just conveying the essential information your old videos were spot on!