Pumpkin Streusel Cake

After making pumpkin soup, pasta with a pumpkin, bacon and blue cheese sauce and giving a huge wedge away, I still had some of our GIANT pumpkin left over!

I haven't done any baking for a while, so figured this was the perfect time to experiment with a pumpkin cake. You can make carrot or zucchini cakes, so why not pumpkin?

I modified a recipe for a carrot cake that I picked up from somewhere years ago and decided to dress it up with layers of a streusel topping. You could probably put the topping onto the top of the cake, rather than baking it in layers, but I think it was nice to have the surprise of the nuts, sugar, cinnamon and dates inside. I used mixed nuts as that's what I had in the cupboard, but feel free to use your favourite type of raw nut. Walnuts, almonds, pistachios or pecans would all be lovely.

The pumpkin flavour wasn't as strong as I thought it might be, but it certainly added a different flavour than carrot or zucchini. Slightly more earthy and not quite as sweet.

All in all, I was pretty impressed with how the cake turned out. It does take a long time to cook, so you might need to protect the top of the cake with some foil if it's starting to brown too much.

I didn't ice my cake, because the kids wanted to eat some straight out of the oven, but you could simply dust with icing sugar or make up some cream cheese icing. In fact, lemony cream cheese icing would be perfect on this cake for a morning or afternoon tea treat.

Pumpkin Streusel Cake

1/3 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup mixed nuts, chopped

1/3 cup dates, finely chopped

1 tsp cinnamon

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and set aside.

3 cups SR flour

1 1/2 cups caster sugar

2 cups pumpkin, grated

3 eggs

1 cup natural yoghurt (you could use vanilla too for a slightly sweeter version)

1/3 cup vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 180 degrees.

Grease and line a 22cm round cake tin.

Sift flour into a bowl and then add the sugar and pumpkin.

In a separate bowl, combine eggs, yoghurt and oil.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until just combined.

Spread 1/3 of the cake mixture into the tin and top with half the streusel mixture.

Repeat layers, finishing with a layer of cake batter.

Bake for 1 1/2 hours or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Gently place a piece of foil over the top of the cake if it's getting too brown.

Allow to rest for 5 minutes in the tin before turning out onto a cake rack to cool.

Dust with icing sugar or ice with cream cheese icing, if you like.

Enjoy!