Rosemary Pumpkin Spice Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

 

Rosemary scented mashed pumpkin, ginger and cinnamon spice, infuse this cake with lovely flavours, a cake which just melts in your mouth. This cake is made from scratch, and yet is very easy and quick to make. The shortcut is to have the pumpkin already mashed and chilled in the refrigerator, ready to mix with the other ingredients. I also keep mashed pumpkin in the freezer, then the cake can be mixed up in a flash. Thanks to my friend Julie for this recipe, I'm so happy I finally made it. I hope you can find time to make this cake as  I know you will just love it. It makes a large cake, so it's one to share  with friends and neighbours. However it will keep very well in your refrigerator. It's Autumn, it's time to celebrate the pumpkin, and it's a lovely time to start baking cakes again.

Pumpkin Cake...so yummy...I roast the pumpkin first with sprigs of rosemary for heaps of flavour, then mash. Roasting the pumpkin instead of boiling it works best for cakes, as the pumpkin is a drier mash than if it was boiled. My tub of mashed pumpkin kept in the refrigerator for a week. There's no need to peel the skin off before you bake pieces of pumpkin. I love to eat the skin as well as the flesh and use it in my dishes, as it provides so much flavour and texture. However it peels off easily after cooking for mashed pumpkin. This saves so much time as well. The colour of pumpkin is also a real giveaway that it is an excellent source of beta-carotene, which is converted into Vitamin A.

We went for a delicious lunch at the Marian Hotel in the nearby Pioneer Valley about a month ago, and bought a large Kent pumpkin at a roadside stall on the way home. I love buying fruit and veg from roadside stalls, I'm sure the produce tastes better, and I think it's important to support the local small scale farmers. Pumpkins grow all year round here, but Autumn is definitely the best time to buy them. I looked at this very large pumpkin in my laundry for about a fortnight before I bit the bullet and asked Mr. HRK to slice it up for me. I am very happy to hand over that difficult job. By then it had matured into a rich golden vegetable. So I baked a lot of it with rosemary, some of which we ate as roasted pumpkin, and some as mashed pumpkin. I made a pumpkin soup, cooked some in a curry, and there was still enough pumpkin mash to make this delicious cake . 

Rosemary Pumpkin Spice Cake

Ingredients:

•2 cups sugar
•1 cup vegetable oil
•4 large eggs
•2 cups SR flour
•2 teaspoons baking soda
•2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
•1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
•1 teaspoon baking powder
•1/2 teaspoon salt
•2 cups cooked mashed pumpkin
•1/2 cup chopped pecans

Sprigs of Rosemary

Preparation:

Grease and line a 20 cm x 32 cm, 5 1/2 cm deep, pyrex lasagne dish, (that's what I used)  or two greased and floured 9-inch round layer cake tins.

Method for pumpkin cake:

Combine sugar, vegetable oil, and eggs in a large mixing bowl and mix well. Sift dry ingredients into a separate bowl, stir into the oil mixture, beating well. Stir in the pumpkin mash. It's as easy as that.

Adding pumpkin to the cake mixture

 

Bake at 160° for 35 to 40 minutes in the round cake tins (50 to 60 minutes for the lasagne pan). Turn out onto a rack to cool. 

Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients:

•2 tbs butter, room temperature
•125 g cream cheese, room temperature

•1 ½ cups icing sugar
•1 teaspoons vanilla extract

Beat cream cheese until softened and well mixed. Add butter and mix until  well combined with cream cheese. Add vanilla and mix lightly. Add icing sugar 1 tablespoon at a time.

Frost pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting and sprinkle with chopped pecans.

Waiting to be chopped up

Pumpkin is one of the most versatile and economical vegetables to cook with. In Australia we love to cook and eat them all year round, rather than just save them for festive occasions. Buying a good pumpkin can be easier said than done though, so it is might be best if you are not sure to buy one already cut to show its colour. Generally, the deeper the orange colour, the riper it is likely to be. You are allowed to be fussy about this.

Poor Locky was in the wars last week. He needed a blood test to test his thyroid  again. The test results showed his thyroid levels are back to an acceptable range which is a relief, and he looked so cute when he came home from the vet with a little pink bandage around his leg. Low thyroid can be a problem with large breed dogs in the the more mature age group. He is nearly 11 now. The lovely vet said he would attract more sympathy with a pink bandage, and he sure did. 💙

Hope your week is going well my friends, and that you can find time to bake this cake. It's delicious and who doesn't love Cream Cheese Frosting.

Thanks for dropping by.

Pauline