Make Your Own Recipe: Pumpkin Cake
Ingredients
Cake
300 g Pumpkin
200 g Butter (salted)
200 g Sugar
200 g Flour
2 tsp Baking powder
3 Eggs
75 g Walnuts
1 tbsp Orange Peel (finely grated)
1½ tsp Ginger (powdered)
Frosting
300 g Cream cheese
75 g Powdered sugar
1 tbsp Orange juice
Instructions
Cake
1. Take the butter out of the fridge and leave to soften while you work.
2. Grate the pumpkin. It does not have to be very finely grated, so it shouldn't take too long to do.
3. Cut the walnuts into smaller pieces — again, we're not looking to make this into flour, just make them a bit smaller so they can be spread better in the batter. You might want to leave a couple of them whole to use for decorating the cake in the end.
4. If you're using fresh orange peel, grate it finely at this point. Otherwise, simply proceed.
5. Whisk butter and sugar well together until you have no clumps left.
6. Add the eggs one at a time and whisk into the batter before adding the next. This adds air to the batter and makes the cake light and fluffy, so don't skimp on the whisking.
7. Turn on your oven to preheat at 175° Celsius (or 350° Fahrenheit).
8. Mix flour, baking powder, and ginger and turn it into the batter. When you turn something into a batter you do not mix it, but simply put it into the bowl with the rest of the ingredients. Then, scoop up the batter from the bowl and put it on top of what you just put in. You continue doing this until you have an even mixture. The reason again is to retain as much air in the batter as possible.
9. Mix the pumpkin, walnut, and orange peel and turn it into the batter the same way you did before.
10. Put baking paper in a baking tin. A good size is 20x20 cm. That's approximately 8x8 inches for those of you who prefer these measurements.
11. Spread the batter in the form and bake it in the middle of the oven for about an hour. Check it with a fork or a knitting needle by sticking it into the middle of the cake and then pulling it out. If it comes out with no dough on it, the cake is done.
12. Place the cake on a griddle to cool down.
Frosting
While the cake is cooling, it's time to make the frosting.
1. Cut the cream cheese into smaller pieces.
2. Pour in powdered sugar and orange juice.
3. Mix well until no clumps are left.
4. Wait until the cake has cooled down. Then, put on the frosting. If you saved some walnuts at the beginning, you can use these to decorate the cake now.
Enjoy your cake!