This Pumpkin Cake is super moist, delicious, and one of the easiest cakes to make. Along with Wacky Cake, this ranks right up there with super easy to make with the kids. If you are a beginner cook and looking to impress for Thanksgiving, you’ve found your recipe! Seriously, every time I bring this cake somewhere, everyone always raves about how good it tastes. And, there is always at least one person that tells me they don’t like pumpkin at all, but this cake, they LOVE!
Another thing I love about this cake is that you don’t need a heavy duty mixer to make it. Sometimes it’s nice not to have to drag the heavy mixer out. Both the batter and the crumb topping can be made with simple kitchen tools that even the sparsest kitchen will probably have.
Follow along with this video or step by step directions and recipe below. If you like the video, please consider subscribing to Homesteading Dreams on YouTube.
Making the Batter
To get started, place the eggs, oil, sugar, and pumpkin in a large mixing bowl.
Mix these up really well. I like to use a whisk for this, but a large spoon would work too.
Add the dry ingredients.
Stir until well combined.
Stir in the nuts if adding. (I usually leave the nuts out when adding the topping because I like the soft cake texture without them. If I’m making the cake without the crumb topping to pop into lunch boxes, I usually add the nuts for extra protein)
Spread this into a greased (see frugal tip below) 9×13 cake pan. If you are making this to bring somewhere, this will fit easily into a foil 9×13 pan and bakes up just as nicely as using a ceramic cake pan.
Frugal Tip: When greasing the pan, if you don’t have cooking spray on hand (or if you are frugal like me), use a butter wrapper to grease the pan. We are going to use 1 stick of butter for the topping portion, so just pop the butter stick into a medium sized bowl, ready for making the topping, and then use the wrapper to grease the pan.
Set aside the cake pan and make the topping.
Crumb Topping
The crumb topping is really a very basic crumb topping recipe that can be adapted to all sorts of cakes or pies. It’s also easy to remember because you need “one” of everything.
In a medium sized bowl, mix one cup of brown sugar (can also use white sugar), one cup of flour, one stick of butter, and 1 tsp. of cinnamon.
Mix and mash this until it is crumbly. I find a berry masher works great for this job. A fork works well too, just takes a little longer.
Spread this crumb mixture over the cake batter.
Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes. Allow to cool. Slice and serve. This tastes great when made the day/night before. When I need to bring a dish to work, I usually bake this the evening before so it can cool overnight.
Pumpkin Cake
Ingredients
Cake Batter
- 4 eggs
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 1 cup vegetable oil
- 1 can pumpkin 100% mashed pumpkin, not pie filling
- 2 cups flour
- 2 tsp. baking powder
- 1 tsp. baking soda
- 2 tsp. cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp. nutmeg
- 1 tsp. ginger
- 1/2 tsp. cloves
- 1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans optional
Crumb Topping
- 1 cup flour
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup 1 stick butter
- 1 tsp. cinnamon
Instructions
- In a large bowl, mix eggs, sugar, oil, and pumpkin with a whisk until well combined.
- Add dry ingredients, mix well.
- If adding nuts, stir in at this point.
- Pour batter into a greased 9x13 baking pan.
Topping
- Mix all topping ingredients with a berry masher, fork, or food processor until it starts to clump together.
- Sprinkle on top of cake batter.
- Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes.
- Cool, slice, and serve.