Halloween is almost upon us and while I don't really celebrate it myself I do take full advantage of the piles of the bright orange Halloween pumpkins that are being sold everywhere right now.Pumpkin can be a delicious vegetable simply roasted with butter and a few herbs or stirred into a rich and creamy risotto. Unfortunately the pumpkins sold for carving are normally grown for size rather than flavour and can be a bit bland and watery, but don't be put off, they still have there uses such as in this pumpkin cake.
The recipe I used is adapted from a bundt cake recipe I found at Pinch My Salt. I've converted it to a sandwich cake and used yoghurt rather than sour cream for the batter, I don't know how but yoghurt seems to give cakes softer, lighter texture, I use yoghurt in scones too for the same reason. I've also added walnuts to the cake because they just taste so good in this kind of cake.
Pumpkin and spices belong together so I've used cream cheese cinnamon icing for this cake topped with candied orange peel and some fruit jellies kindly sent to me by Silver Spoon. The finished cake is very similar in texture to carrot cake but it has a distinctive pumpkin flavour, think of pumpkin pie in cake form and you'll have some idea of what it's like.So when Halloween is over and your jack o' lanterns are finished with maybe you could give them a second life as a delicious pumpkin cake.
