This pumpkin shaped cake makes for the perfect centerpiece or show-stopping dessert.
Pumpkins are always a winner for Halloween as one of the most iconic features of the holiday. This pumpkin shaped cake is a creative invention to either use up leftover pumpkin or give a special someone a seasonal twist with a Halloween birthday cake. Infuse the sponge with cinnamon, ginger, mixed spice and orange juice for a sweet, warming flavour.
Ingredients
- 400g pumpkin flesh, peeled, cubed and seeds removed
- 175ml sunflower oil
- 225g light muscovado sugar
- 2 eggs
- 175g self-raising flour, sieved
- ¾tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 1tsp ground ginger
- ½tsp each ground cinnamon and ground mixed spice
- To decorate
- 60g brown ready-to-roll icing
- 2tbsp honey
- 225g icing sugar, sieved
- Juice of 1 orange
- Orange paste food colour
- Bronze edible glitter
- You will need
- 2 x 21cm non-stick ring tin, or silicone bundt mould, greased
Method
Heat the oven to 180°C. Put the pumpkin flesh into a large bowl with 1tbsp water. Cover with clingfilm, pierce the film a few times, then microwave on high for 8 minutes. Alternatively, cook in pan with 4tbsp water for 15 minutes, drain.
Use a stick blender to blend until smooth.
Put the oil, sugar and eggs in a large bowl and whisk together, with an electric mixer, until thick and pale.
Fold in the flour, bicarbonate of soda and spices. Gently stir in the pumpkin purée. Spoon the mixture into the prepared moulds. Bake for 50 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean. Leave in mould for 5 minutes then turn out onto a wire rack to cool.
Roll the brown icing into a long sausage and shape around a wooden skewer. Extend the icing a little beyond the top and bend at the end. Drag a fork over the surface to make it look like a stalk. Leave to firm up.
Upturn one cake onto the serving plate, warm the honey and brush over the top, sandwich the two cakes together. Secure the stalk in the centre.
Put the icing sugar into a bowl, gradually add the orange juice with several drops of orange food colouring, mixing until smooth.
Drizzle over the orange icing. Dust some bronze glitter over the rest of the cake.
Tips for making pumpkin shaped cake:
If you don't have a bundt tin then you can use regular sandwich tin and cut off the edges to give a more rounded finish, once you have the icing and stalk on it nobody will be able to tell.
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