LOW CALORIE PUMPKIN & CINNAMON CAKE

Hi everyone, whilst browsing through my YouTube feed the other day I came across a recipe that Haute Brilliance had picked up online (here) and I thought I’d give it a go. It involves pumpkin, something I always have lying around after Halloween and I never know what to do with it. I thought I would try out the recipe and put my own little twists to it to make it to my own personal taste! I was a bit iffy about using pumpkin in a cake but I couldn’t actually taste it, and trust me if you like Cinnamon, you will LOVE this! An added bonus is that I don’t feel bad eating this because I used hardly any ‘bad stuff’ in it! 🙂

NB. You can substitute the Pumpkin puree for Butternut Squash so if you can’t get your hands on any pumpkins you can still try this out! 🙂

1. Steam Pumpkin
You can use tinned pumpkin purée too, but I had some Pumpkins lying around from Halloween so I decided to use these…the fresh ones always taste better anyway! 🙂 I ended up steaming 2 munchkin pumpkins and a slightly larger one but I ended up only using the 2 munchkin sizes for my purée. You can cook these in the microwave or oven too but I prefer to steam.

 2. Mix the dry ingredients for your cake batter whilst the pumpkins steam.

3. Once the pumpkins are soft (mines took around 30 mins) scoop out the insides of 2 munchkin pumpkins (I used an ice cream scoop) and use a hand blender to get any lumps and bumps out and make a nice smooth pumpkin purée.

4. Mix together your wet ingredients for the batter (next time I make this I’m going to add a grated apple or two for some extra texture) mix together, then add the pumpkin puree.

5. Add all of the wet ingredients to the dry batter ingredients and mix well. It might seem quite difficult to mix together at first so you might need to get your hands in there and give it a good mix (I refrained from showing you a snap of my battered covered hands as it wasn’t a pleasant  sight at all…sure you can imagine)!

6. Once the batter is mixed together, grease your baking tray of choice (I used a Pyrex dish) then smooth your batter mix in the tray…pop into the oven for around 15-20 mins (you don’t want it to be too dry so keep checking the batter with a knife to see if it’s baked). NB. Be sure to taste your batter as you go, to make sure it is sweet enough! I almost licked the bowl clean, the batter tastes AMAZING!

7. Whilst your batter is baking, move onto the Vanilla Cream Cheese topping! Mix together all of the ingredients and give it a taste to see how sweet you need it!

8. Whisk well (it’s better to use an electric whisk because it will stiffen so much quicker!) Then pop into the fridge to set.

9. Once your cake has baked, remove from the oven and leave to cool for around 10 mins (if you can wait that long!) At this point it smells like Christmas has came early, with baked cinnamon and apple!

10. Once cool, pour your cream cheese topping over the top and sprinkle with some cinnamon before placing in the fridge for around 15 mins. You can then cut it into small cake bars or leave as is! I actually prefer to keep my cream cheese topping separate because I love to eat the cake plain, after putting in the microwave and slathering on some butter just as you would with a fruit cake…delicious! I just pop the topping into an airtight container and into the fridge for days when I fancy the topping rather than butter!