November is Movember month for men and is Pumpkin month for Laura. I really like pumpkin in all its forms and shapes, whether as cake, pie, soup, purée, muffin etc, and that started when I used to live in the US. I chose a nice big "Cucurbita moschata" pumpkin (musquée de Provence), made a purée out of it, and then used it to bake a wonderful pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting.
This cake is made in a Bundt cake form and is extremely easy to execute. Once you have your stock of pumpkin purée, it takes 10 min to mix and prepare the batter. Then you need to wait 1h30 or so for the cake to bake and to cool down, and then another 10 min for the frosting. Try it now, it's the perfect season and great as afternoon snack with coffee or tea. Enjoy :-D
Recipe for a big pumpkin cake
(divide all amounts by 2 for a 25 cm-long cake)
2 dl brown sugar
2 dl white sugar
2.4 dl fat (oil or melted butter)*
5 dl pumpkin purée**
4 eggs
Mix fat, sugar, and pumpkin. Add eggs one by one while beating.
* I do half colza oil half melted butter, for something more moist use only oil and for something more dry use only butter.
4.8 dl flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2-3 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp nutmeg
Mix dry ingredients in a separate bowl. Add to wet mix while beating. Pour batter into a floured + buttered Bundt cake shape. Bake in the oven 50-55 min at 180 C. Unmold the cake and let it cool down.
Cream cheese frosting
113 g cream cheese
60 g (4 tbsp) butter at room T
4.8 dl powder sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon
some milk
pecan nuts or walnuts
Beat up cream cheese and butter together. Add powder sugar + cinnamon and beat. Add a few drops of milk to make the mix more fluid if necessary. Spread the frosting on top of the cake and decorate with some walnuts or pecan nuts.
**Pumpkin purée
Cut + clean a pumpkin (remove the seeds). Bake in the oven on parchment paper with a little bit of oil until soft (approximately 1 hour at 180 C. Peel off the skin, mix the pumpkin in a bowl without adding anything. Et voila! A great base for cakes and soups.
