This pumpkin cake is perfect for Fall! Moist and delicious pumpkin cake layers with a tangy cream cheese frosting and crunchy candied pecans.
This post was originally published on 10/05/18 and was updated with new content on 10/22/21.
Happy Thanksgiving!
I hope you’re celebrating it with friends and family. Ryan and I are hosting Thanksgiving dinner again this year — nothing fancy, just a large roast chicken using Ina’s recipe (it’s amazing) and some sides. We usually do a turkey on Thanksgiving, but there are always so many (too many) leftovers, and it’s just my parents coming over so we’re opting for a smaller bird. And, of course, this Pumpkin Cake will be served as dessert.
In true Olivia fashion (at least recently), I meant to get this recipe out weeks ago so that you too could have it for Thanksgiving. Alas, it was not meant to be. Too much life stuff (aka puppy) going on that has put a serious damper on my baking. It’s all good though, she’s adorable (most of the time), and growing so fast that I want to soak in the puppy time as much as possible!
Last year I abstained from inundating you with pumpkin recipes and opted for some other Fall flavors like Pecan Pie Cake, Chai Cake, and Sweet Potato Cake. This year, I’m back with another Pumpkin Cake recipe for you!
My Pumpkin Spice Latte Cake is one of my most popular Fall recipes (for good reason, I think) so I wanted to take that recipe, tweak it for a larger version, and try it with some different flavors. Dare I say that the pumpkin cake recipe I bring you today is even better than that one.
How to make this Pumpkin Cake Recipe
This is probably one of the easiest cake recipes I have on my blog. It’s a two bowl (one bowl if you’re lazy) method that doesn’t even require a mixer. All you have to do is:
- Whisk the dry ingredients together (skip this for one bowl)
- Whisk the wet ingredients & sugar
- Add the dry to the wet and mix until just combined
Paired with a simple cream cheese frosting, it does not get any easier!
The most challenging part of this recipe for me, honestly, was the candied pecans.
How to make Candied Pecans
Who knew making candied pecans would be such a pain in the butt?? The recipe I have for you below is actually super easy, but I stumbled a couple of times in my experimentation.
I had this vision of what I wanted the candied pecans to look like: shiny and glossy, but not clumped together or glued with caramel. Most of the candied pecan recipes out there show sugary coated nuts, and that was just not the look I was going for.
I opted to try a recipe I found online that seemed to have a technique that would work (albeit with some strange ingredients – milk??). It had a ton of great reviews, so surely it would not fail me. But fail me it did. I should have gone with my gut! The sugar mixture totally burned to the bottom of my pot before it was even supposed to be ready. Thankfully I had the sense not to throw $20 of pecans into it.
For attempt #2 I tweaked this recipe to see if that would work. The recipe is dead simple, which is a huge win-win for me.
You start with a frying pan over medium heat, and toss in the pecans to toast for about 3 mins or so (until they are fragrant). In the meantime, mix the remaining ingredients in a small bowl and when the nuts are ready, pour the mixture into the pan with the nuts and stir continuously for 5-10mins. I used two heatproof spatulas for this, which worked perfectly.
Now, as you’re candying the pecans, they’ll go from a liquid glaze to grainy and crystallized (aka the look I didn’t want), but you just keep cooking them and eventually they caramelize into a deep, dark, glorious color. Except that mine actually burned. SIGH. Some of them, anyhow.
My stove is the worst. The oven takes forever to bake anything, and the burners get WAY too hot. You literally cannot simmer on it. I should have lowered my temperature — noted for the future!
Funny thing though, as I was caramelizing the pecans I actually really liked the way they looked in the sugared/crystallized state! So much that I asked Ryan to pick up more pecans on his way home so I could redo them yet again.
You’ll notice that I actually ended up going with the shiny ones anyway, because they just look so pretty. Even though at one point I was convinced they looked like cockroaches on a cake, and panicked and added some chopped ones to try and hide that fact. I may have messaged 5 of my friends with a pic and a question: “Do these look like cockroaches?” This is my life, for real.
Here’s a shot without all the extra chopped pecans…. you can see where I got the idea, right?
ANYhow. I actually prefer the taste and texture of the sugared ones rather than the caramelized ones, but both are delicious, and the beauty of this recipe is that you can decide how you want them to turn out!
This candied pecans recipe is honestly so much easier and less time-consuming than the others recipes out there, that I wonder why everyone doesn’t make their candied nuts this way?? I certainly will be in the future. Any other type of nuts should work equally well too, if you’re not a pecan fan!
I chose to pair this pumpkin cake with a simple cream cheese frosting, but it would go equally well with a plain vanilla frosting or a cinnamon frosting if you’re looking to amp up the spice even more!
If you’re a pumpkin spice fan or just looking for something delicious for your Fall & holiday dinner tables, this Pumpkin Cake with Candied Pecans will not disappoint!!
Looking for more Pumpkin Recipes?
- Pumpkin Spice Latte Cake
- Pumpkin Spice Cookie Cups
- Pumpkin Cobbler
- Pumpkin Spice Latte Bundt Cake
- Maple Streusel Pumpkin Cake
This post was originally published on 10/05/18 and was updated with new content on 10/22/21.
