Pumpkin cake
Using local ingredients has just got even easier with Eden Yard’s flour. The farm, near Penrith, grows wheat that is then stoneground at a local restored watermill. With butter from Winter Tarn, Kendal, eggs from Myers Farm, Docker and locally grown pumpkin, this sponge (recipe from BBC Good Food magazine) is a seasonal delight.
Ingredients
For the cake
- 300g Eden Yard plain white flour plus 4 tsp baking powder or 300g self-raising flour
- 300g light muscovado sugar
- 3 tsp mixed spice
- 2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 175g sultanas
- ½ tsp salt
- 4 eggs, beaten
- 200g butter, melted
- zest of 1 orange
- 1 tbsp orange juice
- 500g (peeled weight) pumpkin or butternut squash flesh, grated
For the syrup and frosting
- 200g pack of soft cheese
- 85g butter, softened
- 100g icing sugar, sifted
- zest of 1 orange and juice of half
Method
- Heat oven to 180C/fan 160C/gas 4. Butter and line a 30 x 20cm baking or small roasting tin with baking parchment. Put the flour, sugar, spice, bicarbonate of soda, sultanas and salt into a large bowl and stir to combine.
- Beat the eggs into the melted butter, stir in the orange zest and juice, then mix with the dry ingredients till combined. Stir in the pumpkin. Pour the batter into the tin and bake for 30 minutes or until golden and springy to the touch.
- To make the frosting, beat together the cheese, butter, icing sugar, orange zest, and 1 tsp of the juice until smooth and creamy, then set aside in the fridge. When the cake is done, cool for 5 minutes, then turn it onto a cooling rack. Prick it all over with a skewer and drizzle with the remaining orange juice while still warm. Leave to cool completely.
- If you like, trim the edges of the cake. Give the frosting a quick beat to loosen it, then, using a palette knife, spread it over the top of the cake in peaks and swirls. If you’re making the cake ahead, keep it in the fridge, then take out as many pieces as you want 30 minutes or so before serving. It will keep, covered, for up to 3 days in the fridge.