This soft healthy pumpkin spice cake is packed with pumpkin puree and pumpkin spice. It takes 10 minutes to prep, made in one bowl and uses only 6 main ingredients, lower in calories and with no eggs. Frost this single layer snack cake with a cream cheese frosting.
Add the lemon juice to the milk to create buttermilk.
Make sure the butter and cream cheese for the frosting are at room temperature or microwave each separately for 10 seconds each.
Make cake
Add wet ingredients and sugars to a large bowl, and stir with a spoon or use a hand mixer.
⅔ cup pumpkin purée, canned, ½ cup brown sugar, ¼ cup cane sugar, 6 tablespoon applesauce, ½ cup milk, 1 tablespoon lemon juice, 1 teaspoon vanilla, 2 tablespoon olive oil
Add the dry ingredients to the mixture and stir or mix to combine, about a minute to achieve a thick batter.
1 ¼ cup flour, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice*, ½ teaspoon baking soda, 2 teaspoon baking powder, 1 pinch of salt
Pour the batter into the lined pan.
Bake the cake at 35-45 minutes. The top should be dry, tiny cracks and tinged with brown. A tester in the center should come out dry.
Let the cake cool in the pan about 20 minutes. Use parchment to lift it out and let it finish cooling on a wire rack.
Make the Frosting
Add the butter, cream cheese, vanilla and salt into a bowl, and use a hand mixer to cream.
4 ounces cream cheese, room temperature, ¼ cup butter, room temperature, ½ teaspoon vanilla
Add the sugar, and milk, and mix. You can add more milk, a tablespoon at a time, to achieve a creamy frosting texture.
1 ½ cups powdered sugar, 2 tablespoon milk
Make sure the cake is cool, then frost and refrigerate for 20 minutes before slicing for clean slices.
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Notes
*If you can't buy pumpkin pie spice, make it using individual spices using ½ teaspoon each: cinnamon, allspice, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves.For thicker slices, use a loaf pan and bake longer, perhaps 40 minutes. Using an 8x8-inch pan, the slices are fairly thin, suitable to be hand-held. Make a sheet cake. Double the recipe to make it in a 9 x 13-inch panMake cupcakes. This recipe makes about 12 cupcakes. Fill the cupcake wells ⅔ full, and bake 18-21 minutes at 350 F.