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)
This sounds so good. I could definitely see this being the perfect lazy sunday snack with a cup of coffee.
Hi Katie I made your pumpkin snacking cake . Just wondering if it is supposed to be gooey inside. I doubled the recipe. Thank you. Love your Website.
Doubling a recipe does not always work. http://www.cookinglight.com/cooking-101/techniques/baking-problems/baked-goods
I am absolutely making this for an event monday. I love love greek yogurt frosting and with maple I bet it will be even better. I make a maple cream cheese icing with gingerbread cake during the holidays, but pumpkin is my favorite!! So looking forward to this! YAY!
Just made this with canned sweet potato purée and chocolate chips. INCREDIBLE!!! Thank you for another winning recipe 🙂
Yay pumpkin season! I don’t usually comment but I wanted to let you know if you didn’t already that the link to your recipes page doesn’t work anymore. It gives a parse/syntax error both clicking straight from Google and using your menu button. Idk how to fix it but good luck! Thanks for all the delicious recipes!
Thank you so much for letting me know! Troubleshooting now…
These are so good! I made them with oat flour. I bet the icing is delicious, but I left them plain. Yum!!!
I just made this tonight and I couldn’t wait to let it set overnight! It’s seriously yummy! I made it with the icing, but I honestly don’t think it needs it. Super yum! Thanks for another tasty healthy recipe, Katie! I haven’t been disappointed with anything I’ve tried from your website! You’re awesome, girly! Keep up the amazing work!
Just made it! To those who are wondering about butternut squash, it works. I personally found it a touch too sweet, even though I used slightly less maple syrup. Still doesn’t stop me eating half of it in one go. Also, I found it undercooked when I followed the recipe, and after the 5 minutes of in the oven, I put it in for another 10 minutes.
I brought this to a dinner party last weekend –with the addition of coconut cream whipped cream instead of the yogurt frosting, and topped w/ chopped toasted pecans– and it got rave reviews!
Last night I made a version of Katie’s chocolate chip cookie mug cake in which I subbed 1/4 cup of pumpkin in place of the applesauce along with a shake of cinnamon, and it was AMAZING. It’s going to be a regular on my dessert roster now! Next time, I think I’ll add 1/2 tsp vinegar since this recipe for pumpkin snack cake includes it. Also, I use oat flour with any of the mug cake recipes here and they come out great.
Just made this and it turned out great! I used a large baked and pureed sweet potato in place of the pumpkin and oil and it worked just fine for me at least in case anyone is wondering 🙂