This easy pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting is fluffy, extra moist, and tastes amazing. This cake is made with pumpkin puree, brown sugar, cinnamon, and spices, topped with creamy cream cheese frosting.
Preheat an oven to 180c (350f) and grease a 9x13 inch pan with oil spray or butter.
In a medium-size bowl, add the dry ingredients: flour, brown sugar, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and kosher salt. Mix the dry ingredients with a spoon or a whisk.
Set the dry ingredients aside and into a medium mixing bowl, add the wet ingredients: eggs, pumpkin puree, oil, and vanilla extract. Mix with a whisk until a smooth mixture forms.
Sift the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and mix until combined. Don’t overmix the batter so you won’t get dry and dense cake.
Pour the cake batter into the baking pan and bake in a 180c (350f) preheated oven for about 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean.
How to make cream cheese frosting:
Make the cream cheese frosting: into a large bowl add room temperature butter and mix with a hand mixer or a stand mixer until the butter is light and fluffy.
Add the cream cheese and mix until smooth.
Add ½ of the powder sugar at a time (you don’t want to be in a powder sugar cloud).
Add a pinch of salt, and vanilla extract and mix well until smooth.
Spread an even layer of cream cheese frosting on top of the pumpkin cake, slice, and enjoy!
Notes
Use room temperature ingredients.Don’t overmix the batter, you don’t want to develop the gluten in the flour. This step ensures you have moist cake and not dense and dry cake.Use room temperature butter and cream cheese.Use full-fat cream cheese, this step makes sure that your frosting is stable.Allow the cake to cool completely before adding the frosting.Measure you flour correctly! When measuring your flour, avoid scooping it with a measuring cup. Instead, stir the flour with a spoon to create as many air pockets as possible, and spoon it into your measuring cup. Finally, level it with a back of a knife.Use pure pumpkin puree in this recipe! It is very important that you use pure pumpkin puree in this recipe. Make sure that you are not using the presweetened or pre-spiced pumpkin puree. You will be able to find this information on the ingredient list of your pumpkin puree can.