Easy cake recipe - Quick Pumpkin and Spice Tea Cake
An Easy Pumpkin and Spice Tea Cake with a cocoa layer, perfect with your cup of tea or coffee
Ingredients
- 1.5 cups all purpose flour (maida)
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp nutmeg grated (use the finest grater you have)
- 1 tsp cinnamon powder (I use Keya brand)
- 1 tsp masala chai (I used ASA brand asaspice.com)
- 3 tbsps butter soft
- 3/4 cup castor sugar
- 1/2 cup butter milk (add 1 tsp vinegar to 1/2 cup cold -let it stand for 2 mins)
- 3/4 packed pumpkin puree (instructions at the end) cup
- 2 tbsps cocoa chocolate powder or drinking or Nesquick
- 3 - 4 tbsps milk
- Handful walnuts chopped
Instructions
- Preheat oven at 180xb0C. Grease and flour a loaf tin.
- In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, chai masala. Using a fine grater, grate roughly 1/2 tsp of nutmeg into this. You can use readymade nutmeg powder, but freshly grated nutmeg will provide a far more intense aroma
- Cream together the butter and sugar. Whisk in butter milk. If buttermilk is cold, the butter will solidify somewhat, but this is okay
- In a blender/mixer, blend together the pumpkin puree, creamed sugar, and buttermilk mix
- Add this to the dry ingredients. Bring together gently with a spatula. Don't overmix
- Pour 2/3rd of this mix into the prepared loaf tin
- To the remaining batter, add the cocoa or Nesquick, thin it with 3 tbsp of milk until it is of cake batter consistency
- Add this over the top of the pumpkin batter layer. With a toothpick or chopstick inserted right into the cake batter, swirl the batter, poking it into the bottom layer in multiple places. This is what gives the marbling effect
- Sprinkle walnuts and gently press them down
- Place in the middle rack of a preheated oven to bake for 35-40 minutes, until a tester comes out clean
- After 2-3 minutes, carefully loosen the edges and invert over a wire rack, where you can let it cool for 30 minutes or so, before slicing
- Serve warm with coffee or tea.
Notes
How to make pumpkin puree at home
Take 500 grams pumpkin, with the seeds scraped out. Peel and dice. In a small pressure cooker, place the diced pumpkin, add 1/2 cup water. After one whistle, keep on sim for 10 minute. Once cooker is cool enough to open, remove the pieces and mash with a wooden spoon or a potato masher. If you don't have / use a pressure cooker, boil on stove top with 1/2 cup water on a low heat, keeping it covered, until it yields to a mush when pressed with the back of a spoon
You can make this in advance and keep it in an airtight container in the refrigerator
Note:
you can use 1.5 cups self raising flour instead of flour+baking powder+ baking soda +salt in the recipe
I'm sure the pumpkin puree can be easily replaced by a carrot or beetroot puree for a similar, beautiful coloured tea cake. Vegans can use soy milk instead of regular milk
(c) Nandita Iyer 2006-2015