Sweet pumpkin and warming spices like cinnamon and ginger always work great together. So no wonder these spices work especially great in this spiced pumpkin cake. It’s light and moist and, not unimportant, it’s super easy to make.
If you’ve read some of my previous posts, you’ll know that we’ve had a very good pumpkin harvest this year. I’ve always liked using pumpkin in my cooking. However, since I still have about 10 pumpkins-worth of purée to find a use for, I’ve had to be a bit more inventive then usual. So you can expect more pumpkin recipes to appear here in the future.
Pumpkin has a very sweet taste, which makes it very suitable to use in baking. By itself however, it can be a bit bland. While I tend to keep my cake recipes simple, what I don’t want is for my cakes to taste simple. A great way to make a simple cake taste more interesting, is by adding some ground spices.
Traditional pumpkin spice mix contains cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger. I added cloves, cardamom and all-spice to that list, to get an even greater depth of flavour. I make this spiced pumpkin cake recipe regularly and it’s quite a hit with the family. They make it disappear very quickly.
This cake is a safe choice for any novice baker. Preparation is simple: just mix and bake. A standing mixer makes thing easier, of course, but isn’t strictly necessary. If you use a bit of elbow grease, you could probably even get the job done with a bowl and spoon!
Finally, I recommend that you make this spiced pumpkin cake with home-made pumpkin purée, like the kind made in our how-to. Canned pumpkin purée often has some spices already added to it. So keep in mind, that if you want to use canned purée you’ll need to adjust the spicing. Otherwise your cake may not turn out quite as intended.


Prep Time | 20 minutes |
Cook Time | 50 minutes |
Servings |
servings
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- 150 g flour
- 15 g cornstarch
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/8 tsp salt
- 250 g pumpkin purée
- 100 g caster sugar
- 100 ml sunflower oil or another mild tasting vegetable oil
- 2 eggs
- 2 tbsp milk
- 1 tsp vinegar
- 1 tsp Vanilla extract
- 1 tsp Cinnamon powder
- 1/2 tsp ginger powder
- 1/4 tsp grated nutmeg
- 1/4 tsp ground cloves
- 1/4 tsp ground cardamom
- 1/4 tsp ground allspice
Ingredients
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- Line your baking tin with baking parchment. I use a 17cm springmould.
- Pre-heat the oven to 180°C (350°F).
- In a mixer-bowl add pumpkin purée, sugar, sunflower oil, eggs, milk, vinegar and vanilla extract. Mix until combined.
- In a separate bowl, combine your flour, cornstarch, baking powder, salt and spices. Add this, a bit at a time, to your egg mix.
- When everything is combined well, pour the batter into your prepared tin. Put in the oven for about 50-55 minutes.
- After taking your cake out of the oven, place onto a wire rack for 10 minutes. Then remove the cake from the mould to cool completely.
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