Mystery Lovers' Kitchen: pumpkin cake

Friday, October 24, 2025

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.

Tuesday, November 8, 2022

My Little Pumpkin Cake: Easy, Stir-Together #DairyFree Snack Cake from @CleoCoyle

From Cleo Coyle: Our readers may remember this great little snack cake from our 14th Coffeehouse Mystery Once Upon a Grind, in which our amateur sleuth bring her shop's coffee truck to New York's Fairy Tale Fall Festival and discovers the body of a "Sleeping Beauty" in the Ramble, the oldest and spookiest section of Central Park. From there, the adventure begins. Meanwhile...

The writing adventure continues for Marc and I as we finish up our 20th Coffeehouse Mystery, coming next fall. As for this fall, we hope you're all enjoying our latest Haunted Bookshop Mystery, The Ghost and the Stolen Tears, which was just named "A Best Read of 2022" by the beloved review blog Escape with Dollycas into a Good Book. Thank you to Lori Caswell and all the readers and reviewers who are helping us celebrate the release of our newest Haunted Bookshop entry...

To learn more, click here or the image above to visit
Jack & Pen in our online Haunted Bookshop.

Now let's get our fall baking on...

Cleo Coyle writes two
bestselling mystery

series with her husband.
To learn more, click here.

☕ A Recipe Note from Cleo

This is a great little snack cake to serve at this time of year. It's insanely easy to stir together, bakes up moist and delicious, and the pumpkin on the ingredient list adds nutrition and fiber. I make it every Thanksgiving season, when pumpkin is plentiful in the market. I even buy extra canned pumpkin, so I can keep the joy going and continue my pumpkin cake noshing all winter long.

Is bigger better for you? While I like to bake my small version in an 8-inch square pan, you can easily double the recipe for a festive 9 x 13-inch sheet cake.

This pumpkin cake recipe is also dairy free. To finish the recipe in a dairy-free fashion, you can dust it with powdered sugar, or use Dairy-Free Whipped Cream (aka whipped coconut milk). To see that recipe, click here (this link will open a free PDF document).

On the other end of the dairy-eating spectrum, my husband Marc (who is also my partner in crime-writing), absolutely loves cream cheese frosting on his pumpkin and spice cakes. So I'm sharing that option with you today, as well.

May you eat (and read) with joy!

~ Cleo

To download this recipe in a PDF

document that you can print,

save, or share, click here.

Click here for Cleo's Free Recipe PDF.

🎃 Cleo Coyle’s

Little Pumpkin Cake

(Dairy-Free)

Servings: I use an 8-inch square pan and cut the cake into 16 petite servings. For larger servings, simply cut the cake into 9 squares. For a 9 x 13-inch sheet cake, double the recipe for both the cake (and the frosting) and you’re all set.

Dry Ingredients:

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed

1/2 cup granulated white sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice (*see my end note to make your own )

1/4 teaspoon table salt (or 1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt)

Wet Ingredients:

2 large eggs

½ cup vegetable, canola, or coconut oil

1 cup cooked and pureed pumpkin (If using canned, be sure to use 100% pumpkin and not pumpkin pie filling)

Step 1—Prep-oven and pan: First preheat the oven to 325° F. Make a parchment paper sling for your pan by allowing paper to hang over two edges. With non-stick cooking spray, lightly coat the paper as well as the pan sides without paper. Now mix up your batter.

Step 2—One bowl mixing method: Measure dry ingredients into a large bowl. Whisk them together. Make a well in the center. Break your two large eggs into the well, whisk to blend. Add oil and blend again. Add pumpkin puree. Switch to a large spoon or rubber spatula. Gently stir and fold until the dry mixture is completely blended into a smooth batter—but be careful not to over-mix the batter or you will develop the gluten in the flour and your cake will be tough instead of tender.

Step 3—Bake: Pour the batter into your prepared pan and bang the filled pan on a flat surface to release any bubbles and even out the batter. Bake in a well preheated 325° F. oven for approximately 35 to 45 minutes. The time will depend on your oven. The cake is done when the center is no longer jiggling and springs back when lightly touched. To be absolutely sure, stick a toothpick into the center of the cake. If it comes out clean (with no batter clinging to it), the cake is done.

Remove from oven and allow to cool for a few minutes, then run a butter knife along the sides of the pan that are not papered (to loosen if sticking). Gently lift the cake out of the pan and onto a cooling rack. When completely cool, dust with powdered sugar OR try one of my frosting options below...

*HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN PUMPKIN PIE SPICE: Spice mixes like this (and apple pie spice) are good to keep in mind when looking for economical shortcuts to your holiday baking. If you would rather not use pumpkin pie spice (or run out of it on occasion, like I do!) here is how you can make your own: 1 teaspoon Pumpkin Pie Spice = 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon + 1/4 teaspoon ginger + 1/8 teaspoon allspice or cloves + 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

Dairy-Free Frosting

My pumpkin cake recipe is dairy-free. If you’d like a dairy-free option for the frosting, try using “Dairy-Free Whipped Cream,” a wonderful option for creating delicious whipped cream. It’s incredibly easy to make using a single can of full-fat coconut milk. To get that recipe, click here for a downloadable PDF of the recipe, which you can print, save, or share.

OR

(If dairy is not a problem for you, try...)

Cleo Coyle's

Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients:

4 ounces cream cheese (half of a typical 8-ounce block)

2 teaspoons whole milk

1/2 to 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract (to your taste)

2-1/4 cups confectioners’ (powdered aka icing) sugar

Directions: Place the cream cheese into a large bowl. Using an electric mixer, beat until creamy. Add milk and vanilla and beat again until blended. Add about half of the confectioners’ (aka powdered or icing) sugar and beat until fully incorporated. Add the remaining sugar to finish. If you find the frosting too loose, add more confectioners’ sugar. If you find it too dry, add a tiny bit more milk. Frost the cake. I use a tablespoon to dollop the frosting onto the cake, then I use the back of the spoon to smooth and swirl the frosting.