Tasty Friday: Pumpkin Cake

We get a lovely veg box each week from Riverford full of tasty, organic food. A few months ago we got sent a gorgeous big pumpkin (I'm not certain what variety it was, but similar to ironbark in the picture!) and recently I finally decided to make something with it.

Pumpkin Fact: Some varieties can last up to a year in storage! You can save them up and eat them at times other than Halloween you know...

You will need:
300g self-raising flour
150g dark muscovado sugar
130g caster sugar
1tsp cinnamon
½tsp ground ginger
½tsp freshly grated nutmeg
½tsp salt
2tsp bicarbonate of soda
175g raisins
4 eggs
200g butter (melted)
Zest of two oranges
Juice of one orange
500g (peeled weight) pumpkin.

200g soft cheese
85g butter
100g icing sugar
Pumpkin seeds
1tbsp dark muscovado sugar
1tsp cinnamon

1. Preheat the oven to 180°c and butter & line two 8" cake tins.
2. Peel the pumpkin and grate into a bowl. Put the seeds and pulp into a bowl, cover with hot water and leave for a couple of minutes before plunging into cold water and separating the seeds. Put to one side. (The stringy pulp and skin can be boiled up to make stock.)
3. Put the flour, sugar, spices, salt, bicarbonate of soda and raisins into a big bowl and mix together.
4. Melt the butter gently and allow to cool slightly before mixing with the four eggs, 1tbsp of the orange juice and half the orange zest.
5. Pour the wet mixture into the dry and mix well, adding the grated pumpkin as you go.
6. Pour into your cake tins (I had enough mixture to make two cakes and 10 fairy cakes!) and bake. Big cakes take about 30 minutes, fairy cakes about 15. The cakes are cooked when they are bouncy to the touch and a knife comes out clean.
7. Turn onto a wire rack to cool. After 10 minutes prick the cakes all over and drench in the orange juice, reserving a little (about 1tsp) for the icing.
8. Combine the cheese, butter, icing sugar and the remaining orange zest & juice in a bowl and beat until light and fluffy. Refrigerate until needed.
9. place the cleaned and dried pumpkin seeds on a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper and scatter with the muscovado and cinnamon. Roast in the oven for 10 minutes, until the sugar has caramelised. Allow to cool.
10. Sandwich the big cakes with icing, top with more icing and decorate with pumpkin seeds. Serve with a big pot of English tea!

These are some I made for Halloween, using the recipe above I got enough for 24 cupcakes. We added some orange colouring to the icing and sprinkled on some chocolatey bits. Yummy!