This Perfect Heirloom Pumpkin Cake is in Your Future!

My aunt used to make a pumpkin cake. My late grandmother used to make the same pumpkin cake. This pumpkin cake was remarkable: moist, spiced perfectly, with its golden crust iced with tangy cream cheese frosting. Eating it meant envisioning angels, wishing for the recipe, and taking a second slice when no one was looking. (If there was any left.)

I think the recipe originally came from my grandmother’s aunt. But it was lost to me for years.

Until I found it.

I seem to be the family historian, in possession of forgotten handed-down treasures on closet shelves that are just waiting for the days when I’m retired and can spend my time perusing recipes and working in the test kitchen. I found Grandma Ruth‘s recipe box recently when I was looking for something else, and lost a few hours time-traveling through vintage recipes in her neat handwriting.

And BOOM! There was the pumpkin cake recipe!!

I wasted no time in testing out this treasure. I knew from my vivid taste memories that it would be a perfect dessert for the Celebration of Life for my father-in-law, who left us in February. He would have liked it. Nay, he would have LOVED it. Everyone who attended loved it, and everyone wanted the recipe.

My friends, that’s because this recipe is PERFECT. Just PERFECT. And as a bonus: it’s easy. And by the way, pumpkin cake is NOT meant to be relegated only to the fall when everyone is frothing at the mouth with Pumpkin Spice Madness. No, my friends, not at all! This is a cake for all seasons, and it can go to a party, a potluck or a picnic, just as it is.

I made this sweet-tooth pleaser again a week later to bring to a friend’s party, and again, everyone wanted the recipe. This second time, I captured the process in pictures so I could add the recipe to the blog here and share with the world. Let’s do it!

Heirloom Pumpkin Cake Recipe

Ingredients

• 3½ cups flour
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1 tsp. nutmeg
• 1 tsp. salt
• 2¼ tsp. baking soda
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup vegetable oil (I use canola)
• 1 cup sugar
• ⅔ cup water
• 1 15 oz. can of pumpkin puree (just short of 2 cups)
• 1 tsp. vanilla

Cooking Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350℉. Spray a bundt pan or 9×13 dish with cooking spray or rub with butter and dust lightly with flour. 

Combine flour, soda, nutmeg, cinnamon and salt in a medium bowl and whisk together until well mixed.

Add the oil, eggs, sugar, pumpkin and water to a mixing bowl and mix until completely blended and smooth. I use a stand mixer, but this can also be done by hand with a whisk or a hand-held mixer. Add the flour mixture and mix again until blended. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake until done, checking with a toothpick to see if it comes out clean/dry at 60 minutes, and every 6 minutes afterward if the toothpick still has wet batter on it. The bundt cake may take up to an hour and 20 minutes, and the 9×13 baking dish should be done sometime between 60 and 70 minutes.

Let the cake cool on a wire rack after taking it out of the oven, then put your serving platter on top of the cake pan upside down and turn it over while holding onto the cake pan to remove from the baking pan.

You can frost the cake with the cream cheese frosting (recipe below), or just serve it without frosting. It’s that good.

Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients

• 1 lb. confectioner’s sugar
• 8 oz. cream cheese, softened at room temperature
• 4 oz. butter (½ stick), softened at room temperature
• 2 tsp. vanilla
• 1-2 tsp. milk or half ‘n’ half

Cooking Instructions

In a large mixing bowl using a stand mixer or hand mixer, beat the butter and cream cheese together until blended, then add the confectioner’s sugar and beat until smooth. Add the vanilla and mix again. If the frosting is too thick, beat in a little milk or half ‘n’ half. Use a rubber spatula to spread onto the cooled cake, then put into the refrigerator for a half hour to help the frosting set. Remove from the refrigerator at least a half hour before serving.

Join Me in the Kitchen

I forgot to take a picture of the completely frosted cake as we were rushing to head out to the (very fun) party at a friend’s house, a farewell to a colleague and friend who married, retired early, and is now moving to Portugal. So the photo shoot of the completed cake was the leftover slice we snagged to bring back home. As I worked with it to display it in various ways with different complementary beverages, I learned that that cake is stellar with amaretto.

Which makes me think… even though this recipe is already perfect, perhaps a few slivered almonds or sugared pecans atop the icing? What would it taste like with amaretto in the frosting instead of – or in addition to – the vanilla? Hmmmmmmm… maybe there’s some work to do in the test kitchen.

April 2024 Update: This Cake is Popular!

Last week, more than a dozen of my international colleagues were in town and we welcomed them along with our local communications team to Glover Gardens for a non-work shindig: another party, another opportunity to make this cake (3rd time in 30 days)! This time, I snagged a pic of the finished product, frosted and very simply garnished with mint.

Speaking of Cake…

Another marvelous cake that’s been here in the blog for quite a while was shared by my friend and colleague that the farewell party was for. Stacy is a consummate professional at anything she does, and her apple cake recipe has gotten lots of clicks. Check out her Swedish Apple Cake below.

Thank You for the Recipe, Grandma Ruth!

All these years later, to find that recipe in Grandma Ruth’s recipe box is simply another reinforcement of my favorite word: serendipity. She lived a long time, and her cooking legacy lives on when we make the pumpkin cake.

Enjoy!

Let me know if you make the pumpkin cake or Stacy’s apple cake – and by the way, do you have a favorite heirloom dessert recipe?

© 2024, Glover Gardens