Spiced Pumpkin Cake #Halloween @MaddieDayAuthor #giveaway

MADDIE DAY reporting in. Here at the Kitchen, we're supposed to offer you readers clever Halloween recipes this season. Alas, I'm behind on everything, and I came came up short. This yummy cake at least includes pumpkin and complementary seasonal spices, and I hope you'll forgive me for not offering something more decorative this year. (I haven't even gotten a pumpkin for outside, so these gold tomatoes are subbing in for decor!)

I adapted the recipe from a New York Times Cooking offering. The speed at which the cake is disappearing from my kitchen counter attests to how delicious it is!

Spiced Pumpkin Cake

Modified from Yossy Arefi, NYT Cooking

Ingredients

 

For the streusel:

½ (packed) cup/100 grams light brown sugar

½ cup/64 grams all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon store-bought or homemade pumpkin spice blend (see Tip)

Pinch of salt

¼ cup/56 grams unsalted butter, cold and cut into cubes

For the cake:

Butter

1 (packed) cup/200 grams light brown sugar

2 large eggs

1cup/230 grams canned pumpkin purée

¼ cup/56 grams unsalted butter, melted

¼ cup neutral oil

1 tablespoon store-bought or homemade pumpkin spice blend (see Note)

½ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

1½ cups/190 grams all-purpose flour

Directions

Place a rack in the center of the oven and heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease an 8-inch square or 9-inch round baking pan with butter and line with parchment paper.

In a small bowl, combine the sugar, flour, pumpkin spice, and salt. Add the butter, then pinch the butter into the flour mixture with your fingertips until the mixture forms pebble-size crumbs and is evenly moistened. Set aside the streusel.

In a large bowl, beat the sugar and eggs until pale and foamy, about 1 minute. Add the pumpkin purée, melted butter, oil, pumpkin spice and salt, and beat until combined and smooth.

Beat in the baking powder, baking soda, and flour.

Transfer the batter to the prepared pan, smooth the top, and tap on the counter a few times to release any large air bubbles. Sprinkle the streusel evenly over the top.

Bake the cake until puffed and golden, and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, 40 to 45 minutes. Set the cake in the pan on a rack to cool. After about 15 minutes remove the cake from the pan and set it on the rack to cool almost completely.

Note: Make your own pumpkin spice blend by combining 2 tablespoons ground cinnamon, 1 tablespoon ground ginger, 1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg, 1 teaspoon ground cardamom, ½ teaspoon ground allspice and ¼ teaspoon ground cloves. Makes about ¼ cup.

Enjoy your piece of cake with tea, coffee, or brandy, plus a good Halloween story! 

Readers: How do you like to eat pumpkin? I'll send one lucky reader a signed copy of Murder at Cape Costumers, my first Halloween mystery.

🎃🎃🎃

Murder at Cape Costumers is out and available wherever book are sold!

My most recent releases are Scone Cold Dead, #13 in the Country Store Mysteries,

 Deadly Crush, 

and A Case for the Ladies.

Check out all my writing.

We hope you'll visit Maddie and her Agatha Award-winning alter ego Edith Maxwell on our web site, sign up for our monthly newsletter, visit us on social media, and check our all our books and short stories.

Maddie Day (aka Edith Maxwell) is a talented amateur chef and holds a PhD in Linguistics from Indiana University. An Agatha Award-winning and bestselling author, she is a member of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America and also writes award-winning short crime fiction. She lives with her beau and sweet cat Martin north of Boston, where she’s currently working on her next mystery when she isn’t cooking up something delectable in the kitchen.