This super easy recipe produces the most delicious pumpkin spice cake. You won’t be able to resist! It’s an easy quick bread loaf cake with pumpkin, spices, nuts, and raisins. This tasty cake goes great with a mug of hot tea, or a creamy latte on a chilly autumn afternoon.
Autumn is here! I love this time of year. The leaves are changing, the air is crisp, and Thanksgiving is fast approaching. It is most definitely my favorite season… in part, because of pumpkins! I can’t help smiling when I go to the grocery store and see those gorgeous orange pumpkins piled high in the produce section. It’s the symbol of the season. And in my home, it means that pumpkin spice cake will be baking in my oven soon!
Pumpkin spice is everywhere at this time of year… in lattes, scented candles, cookies, cocktails, soaps. I even saw pumpkin spice butter at the market recently! It reminded me of my pumpkin challah recipe with cinnamon butter. There is something so cozy and warming about this combination of spices. But where, exactly, did this trend originate?
The History of Pumpkin Spice Cake
Let’s start with pumpkins, which originated in Central America over 7,500 years ago. Native Americans cultivated pumpkins and prized them as a food source. Because of their thick and solid flesh, they could easily be stored throughout the winter. Like other forms of squash, pumpkins are easy to grow. They became a favorite with immigrants to the New World, particularly in New England.
Pumpkins were (and still are!) prized for their versatility; they were cooked into pies, stews, tarts, soups, and puddings. The flesh could be boiled or roasted, fried or mashed. Pumpkin seeds were dried and salted as a nutritious snack food. In the early 1800’s, decorative pumpkins called jack-o’-lanterns were carved to celebrate the autumn harvest season. Washington Irving featured a jack-o’-lantern in his 1819 short story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow as the “head” of his Headless Horseman character. Consequently, this played a role in the jack-o’-lantern’s association with the Halloween holiday. In the mid 1800’s it became stylish to serve pumpkin pie for the Thanksgiving holiday, a trend that continues to this day.
The “spice” part of pumpkin spice begins in 1934, when McCormick company debuted a blend of warming spices they called “Pumpkin Pie Spice.” Naturally, the original intent of this spice blend was to add flavor to pumpkin pies. It wasn’t until around 2010 that the popularity of pumpkin spice as a seasonal flavor began to trend. The blend signals comfort and coziness as the chilly fall season approaches.
Fast forward to today, and you can find thousands of pumpkin spice flavored products on the market. And of course as a result of this trend, you can also find hundreds of pumpkin spice cake recipes online! I originally published this pumpkin spice cake recipe in 2011, so I guess the flavor combination was trending at that point. Honestly, I don’t remember developing this cake as a “trendy” recipe. However I do get excited when fall rolls around… in our home, the fall season always means pumpkin spice cake.
Baking with Pumpkin
I love cooking and baking with pumpkin. Pureed pumpkin adds gorgeous color and moisture to baked desserts, and a special essence that just feels like fall. It adds moisture without too many calories, unlike oil and butter. When combined with pumpkin spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and cloves, pumpkin takes on a magical quality.
Case in point, my pumpkin spice cake. This delicious loaf cake is one of my favorite harvest-style desserts. Some might refer to this recipe as a quick bread or pumpkin bread. In our home this is most definitely considered dessert, which is why we call it a cake. When you bake it, your house will smell like autumn. Every bite is soft, moist, sweet, and delicious. I enjoy baking this cake for Thanksgiving, Sukkot – or just because!
Recommended Products:
Pumpkin Spice Cake
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup raisins (optional)
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1/4 cup light brown sugar
- 1/2 cup avocado oil, plus more for brushing pan (you may substitute canola or vegetable oil; I prefer avocado oil for its nutritional value)
- 2 large eggs
- 1 cup pumpkin puree
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- 2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon allspice
- 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1/4 teaspoon ginger
- 1 pinch ground cloves
- 1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)
NOTES
Instructions
- Place the raisins in a small bowl and cover with hot water. Let the raisins plump in the hot water while you create the cake batter.
- Use an electric mixer to mix together sugar, brown sugar, oil and eggs until smooth. Add pumpkin puree and vanilla extract. Mix again until blended.
- In a separate large bowl whisk together flour, baking powder, cinnamon, salt, allspice, nutmeg, ginger, and cloves.
- Pour liquid ingredients into dry ingredients. Mix together until blended. Do not over-mix.
- Drain the raisins and pat dry with a paper towel. Fold the raisins and chopped walnuts into the batter.
- Grease a standard loaf pan with a layer of oil. Pour batter into the pan.
- Bake cake at 325 degrees F for about 1 hour, until the edges brown and a toothpick inserted into the thickest section of the cake comes out clean. Remove cake from the oven and let it cool in the pan for 15 minutes.
- Gently release the cake from the pan and place on a wire rack.
- Allow to cool completely before slicing.
Nutrition
This is so so good… and easy… love it!
Made this as Christmas gifts for my neighbors in little loaf pans and 2 neighbors said it was “Excellent!” Made cupcakes for an event at my gym and one friend said, “This is the best cupcake I’ve ever eaten!” I AGREE! It is so very delicious and warming. Omitted the nuts because I would be sharing it with many and someone may have nut allergies. This is a keeper!
This. Is. Delicious!
I made this yesterday for a family dinner gathering and got rave reviews on both how aesthetically appealing it was and how tasty it was! The frosting added the perfect amount of sweetness. A perfect dessert for the season
Just perfect!!
My iPad would not let me select any stars… but this is 5 stars! The best pumpkin cake recipe I have ever made. I had to swap some ingredients. I did not have all the spices and I hate raisins and no nuts. SO I used cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom and pumpkin spice. I used dried orange cranberries in place of the raisins. The tang and orange pairs amazingly with the pumpkin and spices I had. Talk about favor and the cake was light and moist. Very easy recipe as well. This is one of those recipes that quickly became a go to that is delicious and easy.
Hi Linda, your five stars came through! Thank you for the feedback, really glad you enjoyed the cake. 🙂
I’ve done this recipe many times and love it! Wanted to ask if I can replace the vegetable oil with coconut oil instead? Or avocado oil. Thanks!
Avocado oil works. 🙂
Great recipe, everyone keeps asking me for the link.
Allergic to nuts. Do I need to make any adjustments for not using nuts?
Hi Anne, Tori’s assistant Ashley here. You can omit the nuts without any other adjustments.
Can I ask if this is American cups? so I can convert the recipe for the UK
Yes it is. We are working on updating all recipes site-wide to display both US and metric measurements, it is a slow process as I have hundreds of recipes.
Hey,
I’m going to bake this tomorrow. Is this a bread or cake? Would I be able to bake it as a cake and carve it into a pumpkin shape? Also, will it work if I leave out the raisins?
Hi Naeema, Tori’s assistant Ashley here. This is a quick bread-style cake. It’s quite moist, so I’m not sure how well it would hold up to carving. You can leave out the raisins if you’d like.
The cooking time for mini breads- I’m making a dozen all at once- is 40 min. At 325…take out -turn heat off and place them on top of the oven-cover with dish cloth till cool.
I’m an avid baker- and the moisture and flavors were amazing. You have made my elderly neighbors Super happy! They are thrilled! Thank you!
Glad it worked out for you Maria!
THANKS for that info, I was just about to ask. Bake sale tomorrow and I’m making mini’s, can’t wait to taste them!
What is the cooking time for mini breads? I’m making a dozen all at once!
Instead of raisins i am thinking of using fresh chopped dates, what do you think? will they be too gooey?
Hi, Tori’s assistant Ashley here. I think chopped dates would be lovely in this recipe! 🙂
i have used recipe for a while not sure what i do wrong but it falls apart or breaks. i do use whole wheat flour as well as live in canada not sure if that makes a difference.
Hi Lori, Tori’s assistant Ashley here. Whole wheat flour has a reputation for creating more crumbly baked goods, so that is likely the problem you are having. I would try using a combination of whole wheat and all purpose flour and see how that works for you.
I’m baking this for the first time..It looks lovely. The method refers to 1 cup flour.
Just wanting to check if it is plain flour or self raising flour?
Hi Kellie! Tori’s assistant Ashley here. The flour used in this recipe is just plain flour.
This has become one of my favourite recipes. I’ve baked it a dozen of times already sometimes adding different kind of dried fruit or candied ginger and using different kinds of pumpkin. Make sure to try your pumpkin puree, hokkaido tends to turn out pretty sweet, so you might have to reduce the sugar indicated in the recipe.
Thanks a lot Tori for this delicious and beautiful cake!
Wonderful Franziska! Thank you for reporting back to us. 🙂
This was a hit with family and friends this year for the holidays !!!!! Your recipe made me a superstar because everyone loved it !!! I made it exactly as you wrote it and it was awesome. The fourth time (in one week) that I was baking it , I found that I was out of raisins and walnuts. I didn’t want to go to the store , so I used pecan halves and dehydrated apple slices that I chopped up. I put the apple pieces in a little warm apple cider to rehydrate them. That was a different spin on your recipe that also came out fabulous. Thank you so much for sharing your incredible recipe.
What a terrific idea Deb! Trying that next time 🙂 I also love this with cream cheese frosting on top if you’re feeling a little more decadent…
I’m Swedish and live in Stockholm. We do not celebrate Thanksgiving here nor use pumpkin in cooking/baking. But I thought we’d try something for fun and found your recepie from picture googling pumpkin cake and after a few scrolls landed upon this.
It’s yummy!
Really good…I chopped the raisins and increased the spices a little.
Can this be made vegan?
Bridget check out my vegan egg tutorial, which will help you “veganize” many baked recipes (including this one):
https://toriavey.com/how-to/how-to-make-a-vegan-egg-substitute/