High Altitude Pumpkin Shaped Cake
A pumpkin bundt cake that's shaped like a pumpkin! The pumpkin shaped cake is rich with brown butter, perfectly spiced, and covered in cream cheese buttercream. Chocolate leaves and a chocolate covered pretzel stem make the perfect finish.
All recipes on Curly Girl Kitchen are developed for high altitude at 5,280 feet. See FAQs for adjusting to higher or lower elevations.
Equipment
- Stand Mixer with Paddle Attachment
Ingredients
Cake
- 1 ½ cups unsalted butter
- 22 ½ oz (1 1/2 15-oz cans) canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)
- 2 ¼ cups light or dark brown sugar, lightly packed
- 6 large eggs, room temperature
- ¾ cup whole milk
- 1 tbsp vanilla
- 3 ⅓ cups all-purpose flour, fluffed, spooned and leveled
- 1 ¾ tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp coarse Kosher salt (if using table salt, use half the amount)
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- ½ tsp ground cloves
- ¼ tsp ground nutmeg
Buttercream
- 8 oz cream cheese, cold
- ¾ cup unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- ¾ cup vegetable shortening (or butter)
- 5-6 cups powdered sugar
- 1 tbsp meringue powder (optional)
- 1 tbsp corn starch
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- ½ tsp ground cloves
- ¼ tsp ground nutmeg
- ¼ tsp coarse Kosher salt (if using table salt, use half the amount)
- 2 ½ tsp vanilla
- orange gel food coloring, optional
Stem & Leaves
- 3 large pretzel rods
- chocolate candy melts or chocolate chips
- silicone leaf mold for chocolate leaves
- edible bronze shimmer powder
Instructions
Cake
- Preheat the oven to 350 F, and position a rack in the center of the oven. Thoroughly grease all the crevices of an original 12-cup bundt pan with non-stick baking spray. If you have two of these pans, you can bake both halves of the cake at once, but if you only have one pan, you'll have to bake half the batter at a time.
- Place the butter in a saucepan over medium low heat. Melt the butter, and then continue to cook, swirling occasionally, until nutty brown solids form on the bottom of the pan. Set aside to cool for about 10 minutes.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the browned butter with the pumpkin, brown sugar, eggs, milk and vanilla until smooth.
- In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, cloves and nutmeg. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and stir just until moistened.
- Pour half the batter into the prepared pan, smoothing out the batter with a spatula. Cover the bowl of leftover batter, and leave it to rest at room temperature until needed.
- Bake the cake for about 27-30 minutes, until a toothpick inserted comes out clean or with moist crumbs clinging to it.
- Set the pan on a cooling rack, let cool for 15 minutes, then turn the cake out of the pan onto the cooling rack.
- Spray the pan again with non-stick baking spray, and fill with the rest of the batter (do not stir the batter again, just gently scrape it into the pan). Bake the second cake, cool in the pan for 15 minutes, then turn the cake out onto the cooling rack.
- Let the cakes cool completely before assembling and frosting. The cakes can be baked one day in advance, wrapped in plastic wrap while slightly warm, and kept at room temperature until you're ready to assemble the cake.
Buttercream
- In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat the cold cream cheese with the softened butter and shortening until smooth.
- With the mixer on low, gradually add 5 cups of powdered sugar, the cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, salt, meringue powder, corn starch, vanilla.
- Beat the buttercream on medium speed for several minutes, scraping the bowl down occasionally, until very light and fluffy. If the buttercream is too soft, add up to 1 additional cup of powdered sugar. It should be thick enough to hold its shape.
Assembly
- Remove the cooled cakes from the bundt pans.
- To assemble the cake, place one of the cooled cakes upside down on a cake board or cake pedestal. Spread the flat side with buttercream.
- Place the other cake on top right side up, making sure to line up the pattern of the bundt pan.
- Use a sharp, non-serrated knife to gently carve away the "pointed" parts of the cake. You don't have to carve away too much; just cut enough to make indents between the rounded parts of the cake, which will give the cake a more realistic pumpkin shape. Save the cake scraps.
- Use a small offset icing spatula to frost the cake all over with a thin layer of buttercream, or a "crumb coat", then refrigerate for 30 minutes.
- Now frost the cake with another layer of buttercream. You can make it as smooth or textured as you like. I like to let a little of the cake show through the frosting, since pumpkins are rough, scratched up and never perfectly smooth.
- Take the reserved cake scraps, crumble them up, and use them to fill the hole in the center of the cake - this will help to support the stem. Spread a little frosting over the cake scraps, insert the chocolate stem, then decorate the cake with chocolate leaves.
Chocolate Leaves & Stem
- The stem and leaves can be made a day in advance so that the chocolate can set and harden. Start with half a bag of chocolate candy melts, and melt more as you need them, melting them according to the instructions on the package.
- To make the stem, first secure the 3 pretzel rods by tying a piece of twine (or a rubber band) around one end to hold them together. Holding that end, dip the other end in the chocolate, and use a spoon to drip more chocolate halfway up the pretzels. Shake off the excess and place on a piece of parchment paper to cool and harden. Once hardened, repeat and dip the same end a second time for the best coverage. Once that end has hardened, untie the twine. Dip the other end to coat in chocolate, then let that harden. (You can also use cinnamon sticks, but those will not be edible like the pretzels will be.)
- For the leaves, spoon the melted chocolate into your molds, let harden in the refrigerator, and then pop the chocolate out.
- After the chocolate is completely hardened, I like to brush them with bronze shimmer powder to add dimension and sparkle. Just dip a clean dry brush in the powder and dab onto the chocolate decorations.
Notes
Leftover cake can be stored at room temperature for 1 day, then refrigerated for up to 5 days.
If you need to, you can also bake, assemble, frost and freeze the cake in advance, keeping it frozen in an airtight container. The cake should be thawed in the refrigerator, then brought to room temperature for serving.
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