Spiced Pumpkin Cake
As my good friend, Nigel, in Northern Ireland would say, ‘Oh my’.
This is probably the most delicous cake I have eaten. I wasn’t expecting it to be anywhere as near as nice as this. I’ll confess I love a carrot cake and this isn’t a million miles away, but it’s nicer.
The orange icing is not overly sweet. I like to caramelise a few slices of orange with just sugar, then cut them and serve them on the icing.
You have to try this cake, it’s amazing.
Cooking surfaces
BBQ Temperature
Ingredients
For the cake
- 300g self-raising flour
- 300g light muscovado sugar
- 3tsp mixed spice
- 2tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 175g sultanas
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 4 eggs, beaten
- 200g butter, melted
- zest 1 orange
- 1 tbsp orange juice
- 500g (peeled weight) pumpkin or butternut squash flesh, grated
For drenching and icing
- 200g pack soft cheese
- 50g icing sugar, sifted
- zest 1 orange and juice of half
Equipment
- A cake tin. We use a 30cm x 20cm x 5cm cheap tin from Tesco, lined with baking parchment.
Method
To make the cake
- Setup your Egg for an indirect cook at 160°C with the ConvEGGtor, stainless steel grid on top and then the baking stone.
- Butter and line the baking tin with baking parchment.
- Put the flour, sugar, spice, bicarbonate of soda, sultanas and salt into a large bowl and stir to combine.
- Pour the egg and melted butter together with the orange juice and zest, into the dry ingredients, stir and mix until combined. Stir in the pumpkin/squash.
- Pour the batter into the tin and bake for approx. 40 minutes, or until golden and springy to the touch.
- Keep an eye on the cake towards the end of the cooking, yours may take less or more time to cook through.
- The cooking time may vary due to the water content of the pumpkin/squash.
To make the icing
- To make the frosting, beat together the cheese, butter, icing sugar, orange zest and 1 tsp of the orange juice until smooth and creamy.
- Set aside in the fridge.
- When the cake is cooked, cool for 5 mins then turn in onto a cooling rack.
- Prick it all over with a skewer and drizzle with the rest of the orange juice while still warm.
- Leave to cool completely.
To finish
- Give the icing a quick beat to loosen, then, using a palette knife, spread over the top of the cake in peaks and swirls.
- If you’re making the cake ahead, keep it in the fridge then take out as many pieces as you want 30 mins or so before serving.
- Will keep, covered, for up to 3 days in the fridge.