Healthy pumpkin cake
When I think about pumpkin, I think about the pumpkin cake that I eat last year at My Sweet Pie in my hometown. Two layers of soft cake with a delicious cream cheese frosting in between and on top. This cake is very high on my list to remake this pumpkin season, but before I do that, I want to share a recipe for a healthy pumpkin cake with you. Just as my dream cake it is a deliciously soft cake with a cream cheese yoghurt frosting.
So so so good! And slightly more healthy than the cake I had in the restaurant. I had this cake as a snack, but also for breakfast. This because you can store the cake with frosting in the fridge for about 3-4 days and was alone so I ‘had’ to eat it all by myself. But eating a lot of it in a short time was not bad at all. The cake gets this soft and gooey because of the combination of bananas, pumpkin puree and yoghurt in the batter. I used plantain flour for flour. I wrote about plantain flour before in the recipe for the healthier chocolate cake. Plantain flour is quite expensive but I love making cakes with it. This flour is low FODMAP and gluten-free and my stomach reacts very well to it.
If you don’t feel like buying plantain flour, you can use another kind of gluten-free flour or oat flour instead (or spelt flour if you tolerate this).
What do you need (for 12 pieces)
- 2 bananas, mashed
- 120 g pumpkin puree (I make this by boiling and mashing Japanese pumpkin because we don’t have canned pumpkin in the Netherlands, but you can use canned pumpkin as well)
- 140 g lactose-free yoghurt
- 50 g maple syrup
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 tbsp peanut butter (30 g)
- 1 egg, at room temperature
- 120 g plantain flour or 200 g gluten-free flour or oat flour (or spelt flour, if you tolerate it)
- 30 g oat flour
- 5 g baking soda
- 5 g baking powder
- 1 tsp pumpkin spice
- A pinch of salt
- 15 g pecan nuts
For the topping
- 100 g lactose-free yoghurt
- 75 g lactose-free cream cheese
- 5 g maple syrup
- 1/2 tsp pumpkin spice
How to prepare the healthy pumpkin cake
- Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees Celcius. Grease a baking tin and cover with baking parchment.
- Put the mashed bananas, pumpkin puree, yoghurt, maple syrup, vanilla extract and peanut butter together into a bowl and mix together with a hand mixer.
- Add the egg and mix again.
- Add the plantain flour, oat flour, baking soda, baking powder, pumpkin spice and a pinch of salt and mix everything together with a mixer until you have a smooth batter.
- Break the pecan nuts into pieces and stir them into the batter.
- Pour the batter into the baking tin and bake the pumpkin cake for about 30-35 minutes in the oven. The cake is done when a toothpick comes out clean. Keep a close eye on the cake while baking. If the cake gets too dark you can cover it with some aluminium foil.
- Take the cake out of the oven and leave to cool.
- Make the topping by mixing the yoghurt, cream cheese, pumpkin spice and maple syrup together with a mixer. When the cake has completely cooled down, you can spread the frosting on top of the cake using the back of a spoon.
- Put the cake into the fridge for at least an hour, for the frosting to set. You can store the cake in the fridge for about 3-4 days.
A piece of pumpkin cake with cream cheese yoghurt frosting contains 133 calories, 17 g carbs, 3 g protein and 5 g fat (this was calculated using plantain flour)
Will you let me know if you make my healthy pumpkin cake recipe? I would love it if you would share your creations with me using the hashtag #karlijnskitchen on Instagram or by tagging me at @karlijnskitchen
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PrintHealthy pumpkin cake
- Total Time: 50 mins
- Servings: 12 1x
Description
A healthy gooey pumpkin cake with a cream cheese yoghurt frosting. Low FODMAP, gluten-free, lactose-free and only 130 kcal a piece.
Ingredients
- 2 bananas, mashed
- 120 g pumpkin puree (I make this by boiling and mashing Japanese pumpkin because we don’t have canned pumpkin in the Netherlands, but you can use canned pumpkin as well)
- 140 g lactose-free yoghurt
- 50 g maple syrup
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 tbsp peanut butter (30 g)
- 1 egg, at room temperature
- 120 g plantain flour or 200 g gluten-free flour or oat flour (or spelt flour, if you tolerate it)
- 30 g oat flour
- 5 g baking soda
- 5 g baking powder
- 1 tsp pumpkin spice
- A pinch of salt
- 15 g pecan nuts
For the topping
- 100 g lactose-free yoghurt
- 75 g lactose-free cream cheese
- 5 g maple syrup
- 1/2 tsp pumpkin spice
Instructions
- Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees Celcius. Grease a baking tin and cover with baking parchment.
- Put the mashed bananas, pumpkin puree, yoghurt, maple syrup, vanilla extract and peanut butter together into a bowl and mix together with a hand mixer.
- Add the egg and mix again.
- Add the plantain flour, oat flour, baking soda, baking powder, pumpkin spice and a pinch of salt and mix everything together with a mixer until you have a smooth batter.
- Break the pecan nuts into pieces and stir them into the batter.
- Pour the batter into the baking tin and bake the pumpkin cake for about 30-35 minutes in the oven. The cake is done when a toothpick comes out clean. Keep a close eye on the cake while baking. If the cake gets too dark you can cover it with some aluminium foil.
- Take the cake out of the oven and leave to cool.
- Make the topping by mixing the yoghurt, cream cheese, pumpkin spice and maple syrup together with a mixer. When the cake has completely cooled down, you can spread the frosting on top of the cake using the back of a spoon.
- Put the cake into the fridge for at least an hour, for the frosting to set. You can store the cake in the fridge for about 3-4 days.
- Prep Time: 20 mins
- Cook Time: 30 mins
10 Comments
This looks delicious, but the ingredients in the list do not match the instructions! Can you please provide the full listing of ingredients?
I am sorry, something went wrong there! Thank you for letting me know, I have adapted it.
This looks so good too! Want to try every single one of your recipes! x
Thank you so much Emma!
Do you have an estimate how much fresh pumpkin will yield the 120g od puree after cooking? I can just make more and freeze the leftovers for later cooking, just asking in case you have some estimate. Also do you just mash the drained pumpkin or is a little amount of water needed to get the right puree consinstence?
Hi Lucie,
I usually use 400 gram of pumpkin puree and that gets me 200 g puree. I just mash the drained pumpkin with a fork or in a food processor, no water is needed. Just make sure you drain the pumpkin very well before mashing it, otherwise, it will be too wet. I always freeze leftover pumpkin puree and that works fine 🙂
I couldn’t find baking soda in the french shops, so I just upped the baking powder and yep, it didn’t work. The cale didn’t rise and it’s very flat. It is also quite gooey and soft inside, but maybe that is how it’s supposed to be? Do you think I can still eat the cake even if it stayed flat and didn’t rise? I covered it and baked extra long when I noticed it was flat, so that the egg would at least cook through…
Hi Lucie, it shouldn’t be soft inside, so I think it might indeed have been the baking soda. The structure should be like a normal cake. You could try, maybe it still tastes nice 🙂
It tastes really good, my main concern is can it make me feel sick 😀 It is rather dense and moist even though I baked it VERY long time. I might stick it to the oven for a while more to make it into cookies.
Hi Lucie, I understand. As it has been in the oven for a long time it shouldn’t give you any problems, but you never know with our sensitive tummies. So it is better to be careful. Let me know if making cookies from the cake works out!