Pumpkin and Ginger Slab Cake

This delicious cake is full of rich golden pumpkin and aromatic spices and is a cake that will be perfect for your Easter table, to offset all of the other Easter treats coming your way. It is also a large mixture, which will last you throughout the entirety of the Easter holidays if kept refrigerated in a covered container.

Spiced Pumpkin, Orange and Prune Cake

 
This cake is full of golden pumpkin, aromatic spices, orange juice and half a cup of our home produced honey. Whilst we don't really celebrate Thanksgiving here in Queensland, we are planning for Christmas already, and we know that it will be Thanksgiving in the Northern Hemisphere very soon. This cake will be nice and comforting to bake and have on hand as part of the Thanksgiving celebrations. The aromatic spices combined with orange juice and honey are wonderful flavour enhancers in this cake, and nobody will even guess that the cake contains pumpkin, well perhaps at Thanksgiving the adults will, but the children won't. Pumpkin is such a versatile vegetable.

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

In My Kitchen, June 2020

It's a very special day In My Kitchen today as our beautiful twin Grandchildren, Finn and Evie, who live in the Falkland Islands, turn 1 year old, such a milestone for our babies that started out in the world quite premature.

Spiced Pumpkin, Orange and Prune Cake

This cake is full of pumpkin, spice and all things nice, including half a cup of our home produced honey. Pumpkins are at their best right now, which is Autumn/Winter here in the Southern hemisphere, although because they are available all year round, it's easy to think that pumpkins don't have a season at all. However Autumn is it's time. When buying a pumpkin, the deeper the colour when it's cut, the riper and more delicious it is likely to be. My preference is always for the Kent or Jap pumpkin and that's what I used for this cake, one I bought from the local farmer's market. 

The beautiful orange colour of the cake in the photo below shows how rich the pumpkin I used was and the flavour comes through as well. If I was making this cake in summer I might not add the spices, it is a versatile cake mixture, however in Winter spices are just a must, aren't they? I've also iced this cake and sprinkled desiccated coconut on top as pumpkin and coconut are great together.

Fresh from the oven

Let's cook and soothe the soul.

Preheat your oven to 160 degrees C. Fan forced.

Ingredients:
250 g butter
1 teaspoon orange zest (1 orange)
1/2 cup caster sugar
1/2 cup good quality Honey from where you live (not heated or blended) or Maple Syrup
3 eggs
1/2 cup orange juice
1 cup mashed pumpkin, not butternut (cooled)
1 cup diced prunes
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg or allspice
2 cups Self Raising flour
3 tablespoons milk if required for a softer consistency

Method:
Cream butter with orange zest in a large bowl.
Add sugar and cream with butter and orange zest until light and fluffy.
Add eggs separately, beating well after each addition
Fold in pumpkin, orange juice, honey and prunes.
Then fold in sifted SR flour and spices.
If mixture appears to be too stiff, add 1 tablespoon of milk at a time until a softer consistency. This might be needed if you change the ingredients slightly. 
Pour into a greased and lined 22-23 cm spring form cake tin.
Bake for 50-60 minutes at 160 degrees C. Fan forced depending on your oven, but definitely check if it is cooked after 50 minutes. Insert a toothpick or fine metal skewer which will come out clean if it is cooked.

Delicious with orange zest icing

This cake is delicious iced with an orange zest flavoured icing, but is equally enjoyable just served with yoghurt and a dusting of icing sugar.

Orange Icing:
3 cups sifted icing sugar
3 tablespoons warm milk
1/3 cup softened butter
2 teaspoons orange juice
4 teaspoons grated orange zest

Ice when the cake is cool and removed from the tin. Mix butter into sifted icing sugar with a large spoon and add milk and mix.
Add orange juice and zest. Mix until mixture is smooth and all the icing sugar is mixed in. I like my icing for this kind of cake to be a little stiff and not runny, so if it is too runny and would run down the sides of the cake, I keep sifting icing sugar into the bowl, a tablespoon at a time,  until it is the right consistency for me.
However if you like more of a soft frosting to cover the whole cake, mix the ingredients in your Kitchen Aid or with a hand mixer until smooth, and cover the whole cake with frosting.

Garnish with finely chopped pistachios if you like. I just added a little desiccated coconut  for this cake.

Thanks for dropping by and have a wonderful weekend wherever you are,

Warm wishes

Pauline