Pumpkin Cream Cheese Spice Cake with Maple Cinnamon Glaze.
It’s almost Halloween and fall is finally coming to Charlotte. The weather has cooled down significantly (at least this week it has), and a few of the trees in the neighborhood are finally changing color. I’m not sure why fall is holding off like this. My garden is still intact, tomatoes are still ripening, and the roses are truly loving the current temperature. Hopefully this means we’ll have a short winter…?
I’m not totally looking forward to the cold weather. It makes it harder and harder to get Cupcake to go outside and do her business, I’ve gotta dig up all the plants that need to be overwintered in the garage and I’ll probably spend the afternoon covering the duck coop in tarps and making sure the heat lamps are working.
But it doesn’t even matter what the weather is like, because regardless of Mr. Heat Wave, I’ve really got my pumpkin on! And my maple! And my cinnamon! And I swear I know how to cook and bake with things other than pumpkin, but I’m an addict; and I’m not the only one.
So last month I happened upon the September issue of Southern Living magazine at the grocery store. The cake on the cover looked absolutely amazing, I started drooling right then and there. It was an Apple Cream Cheese Bundt Cake with Praline Frosting. Yum. But I wanted to make a pumpkin cake… sooooo…. I adapted this cake into the pumpkin cake of my dreams. The first time I made it, I made the praline frosting, but it was so thick and hard. It looked awesome and tasted great, but it made it almost impossible to cut and eat. Then I remembered how much I looooooooooove Maple Bars (not the maple bars I have the recipe for, but the maple glaze topped doughnut bars that I seem to only be able to find on the west coast), and maple glaze dawned on me as the most delicious way to go. I hope you enjoy this wonderfully moist, liberally adapted cake. 🙂
Cream Cheese Filling
- 1 8oz. Package of Cream Cheese
- 1/4 Cup Unsalted Butter, softened
- 1/2 Cup White Sugar
- 1 Large Egg
- 2 Tbsp. All-Purpose White Flour
- 1 1/2 tsp. Vanilla Extract
Cake
- 3 Cups All-Purpose White Flour
- 1 Cup White Sugar
- 1 Cup Brown Sugar
- 1 tsp Sea Salt
- 2 tsp. Ground Cinnamon
- 1 tsp. Ground Nutmeg
- 1/2 tsp. Ground Cloves
- 1/2 tsp. Ground Ginger
- 1 tsp. Baking Soda
- 3 Large Eggs, lightly beaten
- 3/4 Cup Olive Oil
- 3/4 Cup Pumpkin Puree
- 1 tsp. Vanilla Extract
- 1 10oz. Jar Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Butter
Maple Cinnamon Frosting
- 1 Cup Unsalted Butter
- 1/2 Cup 100% Pure Grade B Maple Syrup
- 1/2 tsp. Ground Cinnamon
- 3 Tbsp. Milk
- 1 tsp. Vanilla Extract
- 1/2 Cup Powdered Sugar
Cream Cheese Layer
In a medium bowl with an electric mixer, beat cream cheese, sugar, and butter together until creamy. Add vanilla, flour, and the egg and beat until smooth. Set aside.
Cake
Preheat oven to 350º
In a large bowl, mix together all dry ingredients. Stir in eggs, olive oil, pumpkin puree, and vanilla extract with a spoon. Stir until dry ingredients are moist.
Be careful to make sure all the dry ingredients become moistened (it’s easy to miss some on the bottom of the bowl). Stir in pumpkin butter. Pour about 1/2 of the cake mixture into a buttered and floured bundt pan. Pour the cream cheese layer on top and using a pairing knife (optional) swirl the cream cheese through the cake batter. Top with the remaining cake batter, leaving an nice rim between the batter and top of the pan. You will probably have some extra batter (I always do). I put the extra batter into muffin cups and top with a sprinkle of brown sugar. You can put them in the oven at the same time as the cake, just keep your eye on them as they will only take about 10 minutes to bake.
Place the bundt in the oven for 1 hour 15 minutes to 1 hour 30 minutes. It’s done when a wooden skewer comes out clean. Remove from oven and allow to cool for about 15 minutes, then remove from pan and allow to cool in the fridge for an hour.
 Maple Cinnamon Glaze
When cake is almost cool, begin the Maple Cinnamon glaze. In a saucepan over medium heat, melt butter. Add maple syrup, cinnamon, milk, and vanilla extract and heat all the way through, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and whisk in powdered sugar until smooth. Using a spoon or whisk, while hot, drizzle the glaze over the top of cooled cake.
If you made the glaze too thick, add another tablespoon of milk and return to heat, stirring constantly until consistency is reached.
- 1 8oz. Package of Cream Cheese
- ¼ Cup Unsalted Butter, softened
- ½ Cup White Sugar
- 1 Large Egg
- 2 Tbsp. All-Purpose White Flour
- 1½ tsp. Vanilla Extract
- 3 Cups All-Purpose White Flour
- 1 Cup White Sugar
- 1 Cup Brown Sugar
- 1 tsp Sea Salt
- 2 tsp. Ground Cinnamon
- 1 tsp. Ground Nutmeg
- ½ tsp. Ground Cloves
- ½ tsp. Ground Ginger
- 1 tsp. Baking Soda
- 3 Large Eggs, lightly beaten
- ¾ Cup Olive Oil
- ¾ Cup Pumpkin Puree
- 1 tsp. Vanilla Extract
- 1 10oz. Jar Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Butter
- 1 Cup Unsalted Butter
- ½ Cup 100% Pure Grade B Maple Syrup
- ½ tsp. Ground Cinnamon
- 3 Tbsp. Milk
- 1 tsp. Vanilla Extract
- ½ Cup Powdered Sugar
- In a medium bowl with an electric mixer, beat cream cheese, sugar, and butter together until creamy. Add vanilla, flour, and the egg and beat until smooth. Set aside.
- Preheat oven to 350º
- In a large bowl, mix together all dry ingredients.
- Stir in eggs, olive oil, pumpkin puree, and vanilla extract with a spoon. Stir until dry ingredients are moist.
- Stir in pumpkin butter.
- Pour about ½ of the cake mixture into a buttered and floured bundt pan.
- Pour the cream cheese layer on top and using a pairing knife (optional) swirl the cream cheese through the cake batter.
- Top with the remaining cake batter, leaving an nice rim between the batter and top of the pan. You will probably have some extra batter (I always do). I put the extra batter into muffin cups and top with a sprinkle of brown sugar. You can put them in the oven at the same time as the cake, just keep your eye on them as they will only take about 10 minutes to bake.
- Place the bundt in the oven for 1 hour 15 minutes to 1 hour 30 minutes. It’s done when a wooden skewer comes out clean.
- Remove from oven and allow to cool for about 15 minutes, then remove from pan and allow to cool in the fridge for an hour.
- When cake is almost cool, begin the Maple Cinnamon glaze.
- In a saucepan over medium heat, melt butter.
- Add maple syrup, cinnamon, milk, and vanilla extract and heat all the way through, stirring constantly.
- Remove from heat and whisk in powdered sugar until smooth.
- Using a spoon or whisk, while hot, drizzle the glaze over the top of cooled cake.
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