Recipe: This cake has real pumpkin in it -- and all those popular spices
It's everything pumpkin spice season, but this cake has real pumpkin in it, along
with the appropriate blend of spices. (Photos: Debbie Arrington)
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With fall comes the return of pumpkin spice lattes and a slew of other pumpkin spice-flavored treats. Add this one to that list: Pumpkin spice latte cake.
More specifically, it’s pumpkin spice cake with pumpkin spice latte buttercream frosting. (There’s no instant coffee in the cake itself, but plenty of spice.)
Unlike lattes, this recipe contains real pumpkin, cooked and mashed, in both the cake and the frosting. (Canned or frozen can be substituted for fresh. Other winter squashes such as butternut or acorn may be substituted for cooked pumpkin, too.)
Of course, it’s the spice that makes it pumpkin spice. “Pumpkin pie spice” is a convenient blend of cinnamon, cloves, ginger, allspice and nutmeg. It’s that combination of five spices (not just cinnamon and nutmeg) that gives pumpkin spice-anything that distinctive taste and scent.
Served plain or with a dusting of powdered sugar, this pumpkin spice cake makes a fine coffee cake or simple dessert on its own. Topped with pumpkin spice latte buttercream frosting -- the recipe follows the cake recipe -- it’s worthy of special occasions and fall get-togethers. (Fingers crossed that there will be plenty in the months ahead).
Want to hold your cake in one hand (like a pumpkin spice latte)? This recipe can be converted into cupcakes, too.
Pumpkin spice cake
Makes 9-by-13-inch cake or 12 cupcakes
Serves 12
Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
¼ cup (½ stick) butter, softened
¼ cup shortening
1-1/2 cups sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
½ cup cooked pumpkin, mashed
½ cup sour cream
½ cup milk
This cake is good enough to eat without any frosting, just like
it came out of the oven. (But the frosting adds a delicious touch.
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Instructions:
Grease a 9- by 13-inch baking pan or 12 cupcake tins (line if desired). Set aside.
Sift together flour, baking powder, soda and pumpkin pie spice. Set aside.
In a large bowl, cream together softened butter and shortening with an electric mixer on medium speed for 30 seconds. Add sugar, beat until well combined. Add vanilla, beat some more. Add one egg at a time, beating well with the mixer after each one. Add mashed pumpkin, beat until smooth.
In a large measuring cup, combine sour cream and milk.
Add dry and wet ingredients alternately to the mixing bowl, beating after each addition, until well blended and smooth.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Pour batter into prepared pan or cupcake tins.
Bake cake at 350 degrees for 35 to 40 minutes, or until top is golden brown and a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Bake cupcakes for 15 to 20 minutes, or until they pass the toothpick test.
Remove from oven and let cool on a rack. Once cool, frost if desired.
May also be served warm, unfrosted, dusted with powdered sugar or served with whipped cream.
Pumpkin spice latte buttercream frosting
Makes enough to frost 9- by 13-inch cake or 12 cupcakes
Ingredients:
½ cup (1 stick) butter, softened to room temperature
¼ cup cooked pumpkin, mashed
4 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
½ teaspoon powdered instant coffee
2 tablespoons heavy cream
Instructions:
With an electric mixer, cream together butter and mashed pumpkin. Sift powdered sugar 1 cup at a time into mixing bowl, beating in each addition.
Add vanilla, pumpkin spice, instant coffee and cream. Beat until smooth, blended and desired consistency. If too thick, add a little more cream. If too thin, refrigerate; butter will quickly harden to spreadable consistency.
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Garden Checklist for week of Nov. 3
November still offers good weather for fall planting:
* If you haven't already, it's time to clean up the remains of summer. Pull faded annuals and vegetables. Prune dead or broken branches from trees.
* Now is the best time to plant most trees and shrubs. This gives them plenty of time for root development before spring growth. They also benefit from fall and winter rains.
* Set out cool-weather annuals such as pansies and snapdragons.
* Lettuce, cabbage and broccoli also can be planted now.
* Plant garlic and onions.
* Keep planting bulbs to spread out your spring bloom. Some possible suggestions: daffodils, crocuses, hyacinths, tulips, anemones and scillas.
* This is also a good time to seed wildflowers and plant such spring bloomers as sweet pea, sweet alyssum and bachelor buttons.
* Rake and compost leaves, but dispose of any diseased plant material. For example, if peach and nectarine trees showed signs of leaf curl this year, clean up under trees and dispose of those leaves instead of composting.
* Save dry stalks and seedpods from poppies and coneflowers for fall bouquets and holiday decorating.
* For holiday blooms indoors, plant paperwhite narcissus bulbs now. Fill a shallow bowl or dish with 2 inches of rocks or pebbles. Place bulbs in the dish with the root end nestled in the rocks. Add water until it just touches the bottom of the bulbs. Place the dish in a sunny window. Add water as needed.
* Give your azaleas, gardenias and camellias a boost with chelated iron.
* For larger blooms, pinch off some camellia buds.
* Prune non-flowering trees and shrubs while dormant.
* To help prevent leaf curl, apply a copper fungicide spray to peach and nectarine trees after they lose their leaves this month. Leaf curl, which shows up in the spring, is caused by a fungus that winters as spores on the limbs and around the tree in fallen leaves. Sprays are most effective now.
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