Pumpkin Pie Loaf Cake
This Pumpkin Pie Loaf Cake came about by complete accident—and it’s now been an autumn favourite for nearly 10 years.
Without a recipe to hand, I was making a traditional pumpkin loaf cake and wasn’t sure about the spices or amounts, so I winged it. The recipe wasn’t right—the texture and consistency were all wrong. Instead of tossing it, I kept playing with the batter until suddenly it came together. I baked it anyway, crossed my fingers, and waited. The result? We all took one bite and said the same thing: “This tastes like pumpkin pie.” 🥧 And it absolutely does.
We put this Pumpkin Pie Loaf Cake on our catering menu the following week. The orders came flooding in—we ended up baking 27 loaves! Some customers requested the walnut glaze topping, while others (like me) preferred it plain. I’ve included both options in the recipe.
This recipe makes two loaves and is surprisingly simple. I always roast my own pumpkins, butternut or squash, and freeze the purée in batches for soups, muffins, salads—and right now, I’m working on a pumpkin pasta sauce I’ll share if it turns out! 😉
The beauty of this loaf? Pumpkin is a superfood, and so are walnuts. That means I can happily toast another slice after a brisk morning walk and spread it with cream cheese, guilt-free.
I’m planning to bake a few loaves this year to give our neighbours over Christmas. They’ve been so patient with us learning French—this feels like the perfect thank you.
Serve this Pumpkin Pie Loaf Cake with or without the walnut glaze. Enjoy it plain, toasted, or slathered with cream cheese. However you eat it, it tastes like a fabulous slice of pumpkin pie.
Bon appétit 🍴
Pumpkin Pie Loaf Cake
Equipment
- 1 Baking Sheet For Roasting the Pumpkin
- Hand Blender or Regular Blender For the roast pumpkin
- 1 Cooling Rack
- 1 Kitchen Timer
- 1 Electronic digital scales
- Baking Greaseproof Paper
- 2 23 cm x 13 cm Loaf Tins 9 inch x 5 inch
- 2 Mixing Bowls
- Seive
- Spatula
- Hand mixer
Ingredients
- 450 grams Plain Flour T45 in France [16 ounces]
- 2 teaspoon Bicarbonate of soda
- 1 teaspoon Baking powder
- 1 Tablespoon Melange pour pain d'espices [heaping] Note 1
- ½ teaspoon Salt
- 450 grams Caster Sugar Note 2 [16 ounces]
- 250 ml Good quality oil such as Rapeseed 9 ounces
- 4 medium Free Range Eggs
- 425 grams Roast Pumpkin Puree [15 ounces] I'm sure a tinned product would work fine
- 200 grams Crushed Walnuts 7 ounces
- 125 ml Water 4 1/2 ounces
Instructions
Roasting the pumpkin
- Preheat the oven to 210 C [approx 410 F]
- Cut the pumpkin/s in half and remove the seeds. Place the pumpkin pieces on a baking sheet, cut side down, if possible.
- Bake for approximately 1 hour/ 1 hour, 15 minutes and check- it should be nice and tender. Add another 15 minutes, depending on the size of the pumpkins.
- Once you've removed the pumpkin from the oven, set aside on a cooling rack, until cool enough to handle.
- Scoop the flesh from the roasted pumpkin and puree using a hand blender or food processor and set aside.
For the Loaf Cakes
- Reduce the oven temperature to 175 C [350F]
- Line the loaf tins with greasproof paper, leaving extra along two sides for easy removal out of the tins.
- Gather and weigh your ingredients
- Sift together the dry ingredients and set aside
- In a separate bowl, cream the sugar, oil and eggs until the mixture is a pale golden colour, about 1 minute. Add the pumpkin puree. Alternate adding the dry mix and the water into the pumpkin puree mix. This will combine together easily- no need to over mix this. Divide the batter evenly between the 2 loaf tins.
- Bake in the pre-heated oven for 60-70 minutes [65 minutes is perfect for my oven] or until a skewer or knife inserted into the middle, comes out clean. Remove from the oven onto a cooling rack. Leave in the tins for 20 minutes, then remove the cakes from the tins and leave on the cooling rack until the cakes are at room temperature. Wrap in cling film or place in a sealable container. THESE ARE BEST SERVED 1 DAY AFTER PREPARTION, allowing the flavours to develop. They will keep for up to 5 days and freeze nicely for up to 30 days.
For the Walnut Glaze
- Sift 230 grams [1 cup] icing sugar into a bowl. Add 2 Tablespoons softened butter and cream using a hand whisk.
- Whisk in 6 Tablespoons cream [single cream is fine- minimum 15% fat content] and 1/2 teasonn good quality vanilla extract. The consistency should be fluid- not too thick and not too watery.
- At this point, you can decant the glaze into a small squeeze bottle to use when you drizzle over the loaf cake, if that's your plan, then sprinkle over top, crushed walnuts. OR, brush the glaze entirely over the top of the cake with a pastry brush and sprinkle over the crushed walnuts. Either method works well, but as a reminder, you may want to glaze the cakes whist they are stilll on the cooling rack, and have a paper towel underneath to catch the excess drops.
Notes
