01/11/2025
Don't throw away your pumpkins now Halloween has past🎃!
Pumpkins provide key nutrients for eye health, including vitamin A (from beta-carotene), vitamin C, zinc and antioxidants like lutein and zeaxanthin.
Pumpkin soup or pumpkin risotto are tasty and quick easy recipes to use up any leftovers you have. Or you could try a sweet treat like this pumpkin cake!
Ingredients
300g self-raising flour
300g light muscovado sugar
3 tsp mixed spice
2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
175g sultanas
½ tsp salt
4 beaten eggs
200g butter melted
zest 1 orange
1 tbsp orange juice
500g (peeled weight) pumpkin flesh, grated
Frosting
200g pack soft cheese
85g softened butter
100g sifted icing sugar
zest 1 orange and juice of half
Heat oven to 180C/fan 160C/gas 4. Butter and line a 30 x 20cm baking or small roasting tin with baking parchment. Put the flour, sugar, spice, bicarbonate of soda, sultanas and salt into a large bowl
Beat the eggs into the melted butter, stir in the orange zest and juice, then mix with the dry ingredients till combined. Stir in the pumpkin. Pour the batter into the tin and bake for 30 minutes, or until golden. Note that pumpkins can vary dramatically in water content, so keep an eye on the cake towards the end of cooking, yours may take less or more time to cook through.
Frosting
Beat together the cheese, butter, icing sugar, orange zest and 1 tsp of the juice till smooth and creamy, then set aside in the fridge. When the cake is done, cool for 5 mins then turn it onto a cooling rack. Prick it all over with a skewer and drizzle with the rest of the orange juice while still warm. Leave to cool completely.
If you like, you can trim the edges of the cake. Give the frosting a quick beat to loosen, then using a palette knife spread over the top of the cake in peaks and swirls.
Recipe from BBC Good Food
