Sweet, spicy, moist pumpkin snack cake – a Fall staple recipe you will make again and again!
This pumpkin cake’s charm is in its simplicity.
It’s an everyday Fall dessert can be dressed up for a party, served unadorned with afternoon tea, or simply eaten as a late-night snack. Whether or not you choose to use the frosting is entirely up to you – the cake is just as good without it!
Sometimes, the simplest desserts really are the best, and a basic pumpkin snack cake is a recipe everyone should have in their repertoire.
The cake comes out light and fluffy, and it tastes even sweeter the next day. So I highly recommend waiting… if you have enough willpower to wait that long!
Packed with real pumpkin puree instead of oil or butter, it’s also perfectly healthy enough to eat for breakfast. You may have noticed, I am a big fan of eating dessert for breakfast!
For the Maple Greek Yogurt Frosting:
Blend together 1/2 cup cream cheese (such as Trader Joes vegan) with 1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt – I used my dairy-free Homemade Greek Yogurt.
Stir in a scant 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract and either a pinch of uncut stevia or 5 tbsp powdered sugar. Finally, stir in 4 drops maple extract. Taste, then add more maple extract if desired.
*Go slowly with adding the maple extract; it is quite strong, and a little goes a long way!
Pumpkin Snack Cake – With Maple Greek Yogurt Frosting
Ingredients
- 1 cup plus 2 tbsp canned pumpkin or sweet potato
- 1/2 cup milk of choice
- 1/4 cup oil OR additional pumpkin for a fat-free cake
- 2/3 cup pure maple syrup, agave, or honey
- 2 tsp white or cider vinegar
- 1 cup spelt, white, or oat flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice or cinnamon
- optional 1/2 cup chocolate chips
Instructions
- Line an 8-inch pan with parchment paper. Set aside. Preheat oven to 350 F. Whisk together all wet ingredients in a bowl. Let sit at least 10 minutes. To ensure even mixing, stir all dry ingredients in a separate bowl. Pour dry into wet, stir just until evenly mixed, and smooth into the prepared pan. Bake 30 minutes on the center rack, then—without opening the oven door even a little—turn off the heat and leave the cake in the closed oven for an additional 5 minutes. Remove and let cool. This cake is much firmer after a few hours and tastes sweeter the next day. The first night, you can store it very loosely covered on the counter; after that, store covered in the fridge for optimum freshness. Frost with coconut butter, cream cheese icing, or the maple frosting listed earlier in this post.View Nutrition Facts
Notes
More Healthy Pumpkin Baked Goods:
Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Baked Oatmeal
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
Healthy Pumpkin Pie (reader favorite)
How would butternut squash work instead of pumpkin in this?
Feel free to experiment!
Personally, I’d opt for sweet potato puree if you want something other than pumpkin.
Could I use sugar instead of maple syrup or honey? I don’t really like their taste… Thanks!
You can definitely experiment!
Baking this for the nibblings’ after-dinner treat, and already the house smells like heaven. Can’t wait to taste!!! I was running out of maple syrup AND honey, so I supplemented with blackstrap molasses. Also guestimated a gluten-free version with half oat four, half almond meal with a bit of arrowroot…fingers crossed! I’ll be back after dinner with the boys’ thumb report (they usually give my experiments one-up-one-down, but whenever I’ve used Katie’s recipes, I’ve gotten four little thumbs pointing high!)
Hi, I don’t have any vinegar at home so will the recipe turn out alright if I left it out or are there any substitutes I could use?
It helps the cake rise. You can try lemon juice, or you can experiment. I would honestly just go buy vinegar, as it’s good to keep around and they sell it at any grocery store.
What kind of vinegar?
white or apple cider vinegar work!
This might be the most perfect pumpkin cake I’ve ever seen!! How did you know to post this on the day I buy a fresh giant can of pumpkin?? 😉
This looks delicious! I plan to swap the flours you listed for almond flour, since I am watching my carbs.
I do love pumpkin everything! And especially with maple syrup, so yummy. I’m just not quite ready to say goodbye to summer yet, but soon enough I will be making this cake. The cream cheese and yogurt maple topping sounds so good, probably would be great with my oatmeal and maple scones too (https://sweetgreenkitchen.com/2014/05/06/oatmeal-maple-scones/)
As a Canadian, I totally approve of this maple pumpkin cake, yum!!!! Combining my favourite ingredients!
This looks amazing – I’ll be making this for sure!
XO, Brooke
https://livethepreplife.blogspot.com
Looks yummy! One question though….are the nutritional facts based on using pumpkin instead of the oil? The fat grams per serving look much too low for using oil.
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