Prettaly – Pretty Italy

It’s nearly time for Thanksgiving and in the spirit of everyone bringing something, this is an ideal cake. I baked it a day prior to eating it, only preparing the frosting on the day itself and the cake was a delight! Super nice and moist.

Little tip on the side: If you have leftover pumpkin purée, just add a little broth and you have a wonderful soup!

Ingredients
300g puréed Hokkaido pumpkin (I bought a approx. 500g pumpkin as a whole)
300g flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons all spice (or 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon and 1 teaspoon ground cloves)
½ teaspoon salt
180ml buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
220g butter
120g white sugar
50g brown sugar
3 eggs

For the frosting:
200g full fat cream cheese (I used Philadelphia) at room temperature
100g soft butter
100g icing sugar
1 handful pecan nuts, chopped

Directions
Steam the Hokkaido pumpkin with its peel (just removing the stem and seeds). Once the pumpkin is soft, purée it with a mixer. In the end you need 300g purée.

Pre-heat the oven to 180°C top & bottom heat.

Combine flour, baking powder & soda, as well as the allspice. In a second bowl mix together the pumpkin purée, buttermilk and vanilla.

In a mixing bowl combine butter and sugar until fluffy. Add eggs one by one mixing each in for approx. 30 seconds.

Now add the flour and pumpkin mix into the bowl, altering each other.

Pour the batter into a buttered baking tin and place in the oven for 45 minutes, checking if the cake is ready after 30 minutes with a wooden skewer – if still doughy, leave in for another bit, if the skewer is dry, its ready.

For the frosting:
Mix together the soft butter and room temperature cream cheese until creamy, then adding the icing sugar carefully until fluffy. Taste if you find it sweet enough, otherwise just add a little more icing sugar to the mix.
Spread the frosting over the top of the cake.
Garnish with chopped pecan nuts on top.