Baked Sunday Mornings: Pumpkin Almond Cake with Almond Butter Frosting

This week's Baked Sunday Mornings recipe, "Pumpkin Almond Cake with Almond Butter Frosting," was a nice addition to the menu for a light Thanksgiving brunch we hosted at our house. Keeping in mind that most people would be gorging themselves later in the day, we wanted to keep the meal simple, and this cake fit the bill.

You can mix up the batter for this one-layer cake in only a few minutes: cream together butter, sugar, and dark brown sugar until fluffy, add pumpkin (the cookbook includes a recipe to make your own pumpkin puree, but I just used Libby's from a can), eggs, and alternately add the dry ingredients (flour, almond flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg cloves) and buttermilk. You pour the batter into a 9-inch pan and bake.

After the cake has cooled, you top it with a frosting made in the food processor from almond butter, butter, almond milk, powdered sugar, and salt. (The frosting recipe also includes vanilla paste in the list of ingredients, but the instructions never tell you when to add it, so I completely forgot to use it.) I garnished the cake with some sliced toasted almonds.

This cake was moist, but also very dense and substantial. I really liked the cake itself (even though I couldn't taste any of the almond flour in it); it had a beautiful not-too-sweet pumpkin flavor accented with the perfect amount of spice. The frosting, not so much. First, it was too salty, although this might have been my fault, because I used MaraNatha no-stir creamy almond butter, which has salt added. Also, the frosting texture was odd and a little oily. Finally, although almond is my absolute favorite flavor, I don't particularly like almond butter. It simply doesn't have the same appeal to me as peanut butter, which I will happily eat straight from the jar with a spoon. I'm certain I would have liked this cake better with cream cheese frosting.

That said, tasters enjoyed the cake and I would like to make it again, just with different frosting. It's homey, no fuss, and perfect for fall.

Recipe: "Pumpkin Almond Cake with Almond Butter Frosting" from Baked Elements: Our 10 Favorite Ingredients, by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito. Recipe available here at Baked Sunday Mornings.

Comments

Louise said…
This looks tasty. Do you think Biscoff Spread might have a place in cream cheese frosting for this?
Elaine said…
We don't care for almond butter straight from the jar either, but we really enjoyed this not-too-sweet frosting. Sorry you didn't care for it, but your cake looks lovely.
Your cake looks great. So glad I'm not alone in the not liking the frosting. The cake though is fantastic and I too would make it again.
margot said…
Your cake looks fantastic! I agree that it was perfectly spiced. I loved the frosting and thought it was kind of nice for a change from the usual cream cheese paired with spice cakes, but it was rather salty with unsalted almond butter, so I can imagine the salted would be a bit much.
Kris' Kitchen said…
Your cake looks perfect. We don't use almond butter like we do peanut butter, but it is a nice change and we liked it with this cake. The frosting is getting mixed reviews. We really like it, however, because so many seem to not like it I will be careful about serving this cake to others unless I have another choice for them. It's good to get all the opinions.
Kris' Kitchen said…
Your cake looks perfect. We don't use almond butter like we do peanut butter, but it is a nice change and we liked it with this cake. The frosting is getting mixed reviews. We really like it, however, because so many seem to not like it I will be careful about serving this cake to others unless I have another choice for them. It's good to get all the opinions.
Susan said…
Your cake looks like it turned out perfectly!
Candy said…
Your description, "It's homey, no fuss, and perfect for Fall," is perfect!
erinstar41 said…
Beautiful cake! I liked how different this frosting was the first time I had this cake...but I think it really matters what kind of almond butter you use. I went speculoos this time around and it was delish.
wyatteal said…
I'm so with you on almond butter. I agree the cake was pretty good and certainly was easy.
Now your black as night chocolate cake has me very intrigued!
Anonymous said…
I agree, I loved the cake but thought it didn't have much of an almond flavor, and I thought the icing was a little odd, though not bad. Your cake looks beautiful!
Bakers who tried Speculoos spread really had the right idea... @Louise, I tried the cake (after I scraped off the almond butter frosting) with straight crunchy Biscoff spread, and it was insanely good.
Anonymous said…
I skipped this one because I can't stand almond! However, your cake looks absolutely scrumptious, and if you say that you can't taste the almond flour, maybe I'll give it a try. It sounds like cream cheese frosting would indeed be awesome for this cake! Or the aforementioned *amazing* spekuloos spread-- mmmm. :)