Description
These little glazed cakes give you all the flavor of pumpkin cake in a fun bite size for the perfect Fall treat to go with an afternoon coffee. Bake them in mini muffin pans or mini bundt cake pans for a bigger, shareable snacking cake. The light spice is a little more delicate than a pumpkin pie spice to make the flavor of the pumpkin shine through. This recipe will make 24 mini muffin size cakes + 6 mini bundt cakes.
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon melted butter or cooking spray for the pan
- Plain fine breadcrumbs (not panko) or flour for the pan
Pumpkin Cake Batter
- 12 Tablespoons butter (170 g), at room temperature
- 1/2 cup dark brown sugar (106 g)
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar (100 g)
- 3 large eggs, at room temperature
- 2 and 1/4 cups all-purpose flour (292 g)
- 1 and 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 and 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1 and 1/4 cups canned pumpkin puree (305 g)
- 3/4 cup buttermilk (homemade buttermilk is best!), (177 mL)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Vanilla Glaze
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 2 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon milk
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract or spiced rum
- Handful of crystallized ginger, chopped or sliced (optional)
Equipment
Instructions
Prep
- Preheat the oven to 350 F (180 C). Brush each well in your pans with melted butter or spray them thoroughly with cooking spray. Fill each well with some breadcrumbs or flour and shake the pan to coat the sides with the breadcrumbs. Tap out any excess crumbs.
- Mix the flour with the baking powder, baking soda, salt cinnamon, and ground cloves in a small bowl.
Make the Batter
- Beat the butter with the brown sugar and granulated sugar until it is light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes.
- Add in the eggs, beating them in one at a time until combined.
- Stir in about half of the flour mixture, beating for a few seconds.
- Add in the buttermilk, pumpkin and vanilla extract, beating until smooth.
- Stir in the rest of the flour just until the flour disappears.
Bake the Cakes
- Fill the pans with the batter. For the mini muffin pans (or Charms Bundt Cake pan), fill the wells near the top. Divide the rest of the batter among the wells on the mini bundt cake pan (or mini loaf pans ).
- Bake the mini muffin pan cakes for 17-20 minutes until the tops of the cakes spring back when touched.
- The mini bundt cakes will take a little longer to bake—about 28-30 minutes.
Finish the Cakes
- Let the cakes cool in the pans for about 5 minutes. After that, turn them out onto a wire rack to cool.
- Mix the glaze ingredients together in a small bowl. Drizzle the cakes with the glaze off the end of a fork. Alternatively you can scrape the glaze into a small plastic bag, clip the corner and then squeeze out the glaze in fine lines over the cakes.
- If you’d like, top the cakes with pieces of crystallized ginger.
Notes
Breadcrumb Hack: If you can’t find fine plain breadcrumbs, pulse panko breadcrumbs for a few seconds in a food processor , blender, or coffee grinder until they’re about the texture of coarse cornmeal.
Big Pumpkin Bundt Cake: This recipe makes enough batter for a full-sized bundt pan too! Simply grease and flour the pan as described and bake for 50-55 minutes.
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 30 minutes
- Category: Cakes
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
