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.

• 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. 🙂