This pumpkin cake with maple cream cheese frosting is spiced with cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves. All the essential pumpkin spice flavors tempered with the creamy coolness of cream cheese frosting. One of my most popular cakes.
This pumpkin cake, along with its incredible maple cream cheese frosting, is a recipe I developed a long time ago for an article I wrote for the Los Angles Times about Thanksgiving. I was killing two birds with one stone (forgive the holiday pun) by making my editor as well as The One happy. (The One loves anything pumpkin. This cake has actually beat out his former favorite autumn dessert, pumpkin pie.) Since then, this recipe has become one of those baked-around-the-Internet desserts, like my ultimate chocolate chip cookies. I’ve seen my cake turned into some really clever loaves, mini-Bundt cakes, and, my favorite, cupcakes. It seems to take well to any form you can think to make it in.–David Leite
What to do if your frosting isn’t quite as fluffy as you’d like
Folks rave about this maple-cream cheese frosting. Rightly so. But it can tend to be a bit on the soft side—as in, perhaps a little too soft if the cake needs to sit out for a few hours in a warm kitchen. (And by “a warm kitchen,” we mean a kitchen in which the Thanksgiving turkey is roasting and all four burners are blasting come Thanksgiving morning.) This is easily remedied by plopping an extra stick of butter in the recipe. (Isn’t it lovely how butter can fix all manner of problems?!) The result is a sturdier frosting, with no sacrifice in flavor, that’s able to withstand sitting out for several hours in any climate. If you’re one of those people who are averse to more calories, get your hands on the darker, more robust maple syrup formerly known as Grade B and recently redesignated as “Grade A Dark Color, Robust Taste,” the frosting magically holds up like a champ and requires no extra butter. 
Pumpkin Cake With Maple–Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients
For the pumpkin cake
- 2 cups cake flour plus more for the pans
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper (I mean freshly ground!)
- 1 stick (4 oz) unsalted butter at room temperature, plus more for the pans
- 1 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
- 1/3 cup granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1/2 cup buttermilk mixed with 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 1/4 cups canned solid-pack pumpkin
For the maple cream–cheese frosting
- Two (8-ounce) packages Philadelphia brand cream cheese softened
- 1 stick (4 oz) unsalted butter at room temperature
- 2 cups confectioners’ sugar
- 1/4 cup pure maple syrup preferably grade B amber
Directions
Make the pumpkin cake
- Crank the heat to 350° (175°C). Position a rack in the middle of the oven and butter two 8-by-2-inch cake pans and line them with parchment circles cut to fit the pans. Butter the parchment and coat the pan with flour, tapping out any excess. (You can instead spritz the pans with cooking spray for baking, if that’s easier for you than buttering and flouring.)
- In a bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves, salt, and pepper until well combined. Take a whiff. Heaven.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment or in a large bowl using a good old-fashioned hand mixer on medium speed, beat the butter, dark brown sugar, and granulated sugar until fluffy, about 5 minutes.
- Plop the eggs, 1 at a time, into the bowl, beating and scraping down the sides of the bowl after each addition. Alternate adding the flour and buttermilk mixtures to the bowl, starting and ending with the flour.
- Dump in the pumpkin and beat just until the pumpkin is incorporated and the cake batter is smooth.
- Spoon the batter into the prepared cake pans, dividing it evenly. Give each filled pan a good smack flat against the counter to release any air bubbles. (Simply hold the pan a couple inches above your countertop and drop it. Trust us. It works.)
- Bake the cakes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 30 to 40 minutes. Let the cakes cool in the pans on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Carefully turn out the cakes from the pans onto the wire rack, peel off the parchment paper, turn them right side up, and let them cool completely.
Make the maple-cream cheese frosting
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment or in a bowl using a good old-fashioned hand mixer on medium speed, beat the cream cheese, butter, confectioners’ sugar, and maple syrup until fluffy.
- To assemble the whole shebang, place a cake layer on a plate or cake stand and generously frost the top of it. Place the other cake on top and frost the sides and top, swirling the frosting like the pro that you are. If the frosting seems a touch on the soft side, slip the cake in the fridge for at least 30 minutes until the frosting is set or, if you notice it before you frost the cake, see our note above the recipe.
Show Nutrition
Originally published May 10, 2009
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MAN, was this cake wonderful! I needed a GF dessert for Thanksgiving so I swapped out the wheat flour and used the same weight of Bob’s Red Mill 1 to 1 Baking Blend (contains xanthan gum). I have better success baking by weight, especially when I’m baking gluten free. I added some chopped praline pecans around the top edge to finish it off. Everyone freaked out about how good it was, even the people who weren’t gluten free! And the cream cheese frosting is downright dangerous!
Thank you, EEB! We’re delighted this worked so well and everyone enjoyed it.
Hello David, I really enjoy your blog! This looks like a great recipe. I’d like to make it with fresh cranberries in the cake batter – do you think that it would work?… Thanks!
Michele, I think it would throw off the flavor. The cranberries will be too tart.
Cake is delicious and super easy to make but my cake did not rise. Fresh ingredients of course. What would cause this?
Yes I used buttermilk. The only thing I can think of is that I overmixed the butter. When I added the liquid to the dry, the batter looked like it separated.
Thank you for the reply. I love this site!
Hi Bethany, I think your hunch is right that something was off with the creaming of the butter. Besides over- or under-creaming, another culprit I can think of is the temperature of the ingredients that normally live in the refrigerator. It’s critical to use butter that is at the ideal room temperature for baking (meaning it is still cool to the touch and has just a little give when pressed with your finger tip), otherwise it won’t aerate properly during creaming. It’s also important to help your butter maintain that ideal temperature, by making sure the other ingredients (buttermilk and eggs in this case) are not too chilled.
I don’t think your batter looking a bit “separated” is an issue. It’s probably a little curdling caused by the acid in the buttermilk.
Bethany, did you use buttermilk? I’ve made this literally hundreds of times over the last two decades, and I’ve never had a problem with it rising.
We’re so pleased to hear that you enjoyed this, Bethany, but sorry to hear that it didn’t rise. If your baking soda or baking powder wasn’t the culprit here, I’d recommend making sure that your oven is operating at the correct temperature and always weigh your ingredients.
I always weigh dry ingredients. All of the ingredients were room temperature. I use farm fresh eggs that are never refrigerated. The baking soda and baking powder are fresh. I’ll make it again soon and see if I get a different result. I plan on increasing the ginger and cinnamon too.
That’s helpful, Bethany. I’m curious to hear how it turns out with the increased ginger and cinnamon. Do you have an oven thermometer that you can use to check to make sure your oven is operating at the correct temperature?
Perfect! thanks so much for replying.
You bet, Catherine!
This cake is amazing! So delicious! I made it for my husband’s birthday 18 months ago with some candied pecans and I am still getting requests from people to make it for them too. I wondered how this recipe would go as cupcakes? Would you recommend any modifications? Thank-you
Catherine, glad to hear this! And happy birthday to your husband, albeit a bit late.
These work beautifully as cupcakes. There are no modifications needed except for a shorter baking time. 18 to 20 minutes for standard-size cuppers.