No Waste "REAL" Pumpkin Cake & Cake Pop
Introduction: No Waste "REAL" Pumpkin Cake & Cake Pop
Pumpkin is now really EVERYWHERE! Today I will show you a super realistic pumpkin cake made FROM SCRATCH. Best part of this Instructable is that there will be NO WASTE on the cake -- I'll show you how I turn leftover cake into really cute mini pumpkin cake pops.
You can make these as bigger sizes or different sizes for Halloween prop, Thanksgiving dessert, table setting or literally anything. The technique of making the cake pops also applies to almost everything, so you won't need to throw any cake off-cut in the future.
Now let's start from this 0-100 journey with pumpkin!
Supplies
Mini bundt pan, spatula, mixing bowl, stand mixer / hand mixer, blender / hand blender
Step 1: From Scratch - Prepare Pumpkin
Yep, the first step starts with a real pumpkin. If you prefer store bought pumpkin puree, completely fine and please skip first two steps. However I always enjoy making my own pumpkin puree -- I used Kent Pumpkin here (dark green skin), they're really creamy and naturally sweet and fragrant. I much prefer them in baking than canned puree. Plus it's really easy to make.
1. Rinse the pumpkin, and clean the skin as well. I used 1/4 of a Kent pumpkin.
2. Use a knife/spoon to remove the middle part and all the pumpkin seeds.
3. Roughly chop them into big chunks
4. Put all chopped pieces in boiling water. Depending on your size of the pumpkin and the size of your pot, it might take about 5-15 min to fully cook your pumpkin.
5. An easy way to detect if they're ready -- put a stick into the pumpkin, if it's soft enough to push through the stick, they're ready to be taken out!
6. Take out the pumpkin, and leave them till room temperature or slightly warm before cutting
7. Now the skins are really soft to be removed, roughly chop off all the skin and chop the flesh into smaller pieces
Step 2: Make Pumpkin Puree
Now we're ready to make our own pumpkin puree.
1. Put all chopped pumpkin pieces into a mixing bowl.
2. Add a little bit water into your pumpkin for a smoother texture -- add 1 tablespoon each time. You don't want your puree to be too watery otherwise it will dilute the taste of your cake. 2
Add water gradually till you can blend your pumpkin.
3. I used a hand blender, but you can use any blender you have. Keep blending till it's smooth. As we will bake it later, it doesn't matter if there're small chunks of pumpkin inside, it will add a bit texture to the cake. If you want super smooth puree for other baking purposes, you can run it through a mesh.
4. Now you've had a super nice homemade pumpkin puree.
Please note: if you use store bought pumpkin puree, make sure it's the one that without any sugar (not pumpkin pie filling).
Step 3: Prepare Your Pumpkin Spice Cake
Ingredients:
Pumpkin Puree 350g (1.5 cups)
Pumpkin spice (cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, allspice) 1tsp each
Salt 1/2 tsp
Baking powder 1 tsp
Plain flour 500g (3.5 cups)
Raw Sugar (or light brown sugar, or dark brown sugar) 400g (2 cups)
Eggs 4ea
Cream 350g (1.5 cups)
Softened unsalted butter 227g (1 cup)
Process:
1. Using a stand mixer (or you can use hand mixer for this recipe, but stand mixer is easier for me to take photos) to start whipping softened butter.
2. Add in your choice of sugar. I suggest sugar with slightly brown colour, for example raw sugar or light brown sugar. If you want a really dark colour cake, you can also use dark brown sugar.
3. After the sugar is also whipped in butter, add in cream.
4. When all ingredients are mixed, put in eggs one by one. Add the next one when it's mixed thoroughly.
5. Mix all the dry ingredients - pumpkin spice, plain flour, salt, baking powder. Here I used ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice. You can also add clove powder or any other spice you like. You can adjust the quantity here to make your cake spicier if you like.
6. Sieve all dry ingredients and mix them evenly.
7. Add dry ingredients into the mixing bowl in 3 times. Each time after putting in the dry ingredients, put 1/3 of the pumpkin puree as well.
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