A Really Good Pumpkin Cake (aka Gordon's 3rd Birthday Party Cake)

Beat together

 3 eggs
1 cup oil
2 cups pumpkin puree (if it's watery fresh pumpkin or if it's not watery pumpkin 2 cups and 1 cup of the drained pumpkin juice, if you use canned pumpkin you may want to add a bit of liquid)

Add:
1 1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ginger (or about 2 teaspoons fresh ginger)
1/2 teaspoon salt

Stir together (sift if you want):
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder

Mix flour mixture into wet ingredients.

Pour into cake pan and bake at 350 for 35-40 min or in muffin or baby bundt pans and cook shorter time.

Aria originated this recipe for Gordon's 3rd birthday celebration in Hawaii and we repeated it when they came for Thanksgiving (2025).

Aria says it's Gordon-approved when made it with cream cheese frosting. I sprinkled Trader Joe's pumpkin spice pumpkin seeds on top of the the batter before cooking and it was delightful. These are only available seasonally, make sure you pick up extras in October. They are also wonderful in my cabbage/apple/pomegranate salad and sprinkled on pumpkin pancakes batter before you flip the pancakes.

I planned to have the cake for dinner after we picked up Gordon and family from the airport. I also taught seminary that morning so I made a double batch to have it for seminary.  When we tried it the texture was off ...  Kim thought is was still raw ... it wasn't ... I just forgot to add the leavening.  

So I re-made a double batch, this time with the leavening agents and it worked out better. They were a hit at seminary.

When Spencer tried the first batch he thought it still tastes great and said it's almost like the texture of a pumpkin fudge.