some more pumpkin Charlie Brown ….

Well …. , Thanksgiving is long gone, and Christmas is knocking on the door. I am not particularly fond of pumpkin pie, but a cake is a different story. Banana cake, zucchini cake (this will be the subject to a later blog), and pumpkin cake.

It is quite interesting, if you apply heat to this hard unyielding vegetable, solid enough to break your favorite kitchen utensil … but heat it ….. and it turns into this fragile, silky pulp.

I like my pumpkin roasted. It removes some of the liquid of the flesh and intensifies the flavor. Married with some spices, it gives you a base for the most delicate cake.

Below I have a recipe for a light pumpkin cake, oil based rather than buttery. If you feel adventurous enough, you can substitute the vegetable oil with a mild and sweet olive oil.

So, now you have a cake. What now. Here are the options:

1. Glaze it with chocolate

2. Eat it plain with ice cream

3. Whipped cream would be a very Viennese option …….

4. All of the above ….. or:

5. drizzle it with some orange liquor …. brush it with orange marmalade …. decorate with dried fruits and …

…. presto …. you got a Christmas cake. And …. you still can

1. Glaze it with chocolate

2. Eat it plain with ice cream

3. Whipped cream would be a very Viennese option ……

PUMPKIN CAKE

Ingredients

• 100g Vegetable oil

• 25g Pumpkin seed oil

• 250g Dark brown sugar

• 460g Pumpkin

• 3 pc Whole eggs

• 250g Granulated sugar

• 320g All purpose flour

• ½ tsp ground nutmeg

• ½ tsp ground cinnamon

• ½ tsp ground cloves

• ½  tsp ground ginger

• 1 tsp baking soda

• Vanilla

• ½ tsp Fleur de sel

• 60g Walnuts

• 60g Raisins

Instructions

•      Pre-heat oven to 175 degrees C. Grease one 24 cm gugelhupf mold or a loaf tin.

•      Roast the pumpkin in you oven for about 30 min or until tender

•      Cream oil, beaten eggs, pumpkin and vanilla together

•      Sift the flour, sugar, baking-soda, ground nutmeg, ground ginger, ground cinnamon, ground cloves and fleur de sel together.

•      Add the flour mixture to the pumpkin mixture and mix until just combined. If desired, stir in some chopped nuts.

•      Pour batter into the prepared pan

•      Bake at 175 degrees C for 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

•      Let cake cool in pan for 5 minutes then turn out onto a plate and sprinkle with confectioners’ sugar or decorate with dried fruits

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