The world’s best pumpkin cake
29.9.2016
Translation: Jessica Johnson-Ferguson
Well hello there autumn! Days are getting shorter, nights are getting colder and leaves are gradually changing colour and presenting themselves in a beautiful palette of orange.
Personally, I love this beautiful time of year – even those wet and dreary days. They make my home feel even warmer and cosier, especially when the air is filled with the smell of cake. That’s what I call perfect autumn life.
This recipe for pumpkin cake is a tiny bit time-consuming as the pumpkin needs to be pre-cooked and pureed. However, the puree is what makes this cake irresistibly soft and tender. Add a sprinkling of cinnamon and you’ve got the number 1 autumn cake.
You can use any pumpkin that’s suitable for baking. Look out for labels that say “for cakes” or “for baking”. If there are no labels and you’re in doubt: the famous butternut always works.
Ingredients
For a 26cm springform cake tin
- 600 grams pumpkin (gross weight)
- 3 eggs
- 120 g white sugar
- 120 g soft butter
- 120 g icing sugar
- 1 packet vanilla sugar
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- 50 ml milk
- 250 g flour
- ½ packet baking powder
- 1 good pinch salt
- Icing sugar for sprinkling
Directions
- Peel pumpkin and cut into small cubes. Cook in little water (just about covering pumpkin cubes) for 10–15 minutes. Pour off water and squash cubes with a fork or an immersion blender. The puree should be as smooth as possible. Add cinnamon.
- Preheat oven to 180° C top and bottom heat (or 165° C fan heat).
- Separate eggs and whisk egg whites to soft peak stage. Slowly add 120 grams sugar while stirring continuously with hand blender. Keep stirring for 2–3 minutes. Put aside.
- Stir together the egg yolks, butter, icing sugar and vanilla sugar. Stir until thick, fluffy and light in colour. This can take up to 5 minutes depending on your blender.
- Alternately add pumpkin puree and milk to egg yolk mixture and occasionally stir well.
- In a separate bowl, bring together flour, baking powder and salt and add to wet mixture.
- Finally, carefully fold the egg whites into the dough and pour into cake tin lined with baking paper.
- Bake for 40–45 minutes in middle of oven.
- Do the skewer test: Pierce cake with skewer (e.g. a thin wooden stick or toothpick) when baking time is up. If it comes out clean with no streaks of batter, it’s done.
- Sprinkle the cooled cake with icing sugar or pour thin icing made of 100 grams icing sugar and a bit of milk.
Enjoy and have a wonderful autumn!
Items that might come in handy for this recipe
More recipes by lalaSophie
This full-time mum and video editor has been rattling those pots and pans since 2012 when she started her baking blog lalaSophiebackt.ch. She loves all things sweet and colourful.
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