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Soft, delicious pumpkin cake with the perfect amount of pumpkin pie spice topped with a simply perfect cream cheese frosting. You will totally love this cake! A few years ago Dallin signed up for his work Bake Off. He made this cake, and we each decorated our own. He did such a great job, and won first place!! It was no wonder, this cake is seriously dreamy!
This was the cake I decorated! I rolled the bottom in cinnamon sugar and topped the cake with cinnamon sugar pumpkin donuts.
The cake above was fully decorated by Dallin! He did such a great job! It’s so crazy to see our front room like this!
I have used these pumpkin cupcakes as favors for a Little Pumpkin Baby Shower that I hosted that I’ll hopefully post soon. Another crowd favorite! So simple, impactful and yummy! It was a Drive By Baby Shower last year in the midst of Covid so I wanted to keep things super clean, super clean is honestly my style though. I packaged each cupcake individually using THESE cupcake containers and they were perfect. Then topped them with a custom sticker I made for the shower that was so easy and went with the rest of the shower theme and colors.
Wether you’re making it for a Bake Off, Baby Shower, Halloween, Thanksgiving or just because you want a delicious pumpkin treat-this is the recipe for you!
A few tips for this recipe, don’t over mix or over bake the cake, the cake will be dry and you won’t get that perfectly soft and fluffy texture you are wanting.
The Cream Cheese Frosting is softer than buttercream frosting and proved to be a bit tricky when stacking cake layers, keep that in mind and add more powdered sugar if needed. Or use it as a filling instead of an overall frosting. I did not have a problem with any of the cupcakes frosting though.
Pumpkin Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients
Pumpkin Cake
- 1 (15 oz.) can pumpkin
- 1 T. pumpkin pie spice
- 3 large eggs room temperature
- 1/2 C. sour cream room temperature
- 1/2 C. buttermilk room temperature
- 1/3 C. vegetable oil
- 1 T. vanilla
- 1 yellow cake mix sifted
Cream Cheese Frosting
- 2 (8 oz.) pkgs. cream cheese right from fridge
- 1 C. butter softened
- 5-6 C. powdered sugar
- 4 tsp. vanilla
Cinnamon Chip Drip
- 1 C. cinnamon chips
- 1/4 C. heavy cream
Instructions
Pumpkin Cake
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Spray 3, 6 inch rounds with cooking spray, put parchment paper round at bottom of pan then spray again with cooking spray or place cupcake liners in cupcake pan. Set aside.
- Whisk together pumpkin, pumpkin pie spice, eggs, sour cream, buttermilk, oil, and vanilla.
- When combined, sift in cake mix and stir until just combined. Do not over mix, but make sure all the dry ingredients have been incorporated.
- Divide cake batter evenly between cake pans or (24) cupcake liners.
- Bake cake layers for 30-35 minutes, or 14-16 minutes if you're making cupcakes, until center is baked all the way through. Do not over bake!
- Let cool in pans for 10 minutes then flip out onto wire cooling rack until cakes are room temperature, if making cupcakes only leave them in the pan for a few minutes then move to cooling rack.
- Wrap cake layers in plastic wrap and put in freezer. Stacking and assembly is SO much easier with frozen cakes!
Cream Cheese Frosting
- Mix cold cream cheese and softened butter until throughly combined. Add powdered sugar and vanilla. Beat until whipped and creamy.
Cinnamon Chip Drip
- Combine chips and heavy cream in a bowl and microwave for 30 second increments until smooth.
