Fall Favorite: Pumpkin Cake

This sweet treat feeds a crowd and is a great dish to bring to family gatherings, work potlucks, or even your annual Friendsgiving! Even though it’s generally served as a dessert, it’s also a perfect addition to a brunch spread!

Despite our recent weather here in West Michigan, we are still in the season of Pumpkin Spice & Everything Nice. And even though I have put up my Christmas decorations, I’m still very much embracing fall foods. So, friends, because I love you, I’m sharing my recipe for my favorite fall sweet treat: Pumpkin Cake.

This started as a dessert that my mom discovered when we were kids and someone else’s mom brought it to some school party. I almost feel like I don’t remember a time when we didn’t eat this every fall. It feeds a crowd and is a perfect dish to bring to family gatherings, work potlucks, or even your annual friendsgiving party! The other awesome thing about this is that while it’s definitely generally served as a dessert, it’s also a perfect brunch dish!

A couple of weeks ago, my cousin came with her family from Ohio to visit, and my mom made pumpkin cake for us. I asked her for the recipe so that I could just have an idea of how badly I was going to dip into my weeklies that weekend and, considering I was already planning on having at least two pieces, I plugged it in the recipe creator. 14 points, y’all. 😳 14 points. That weekend, I rolled with it, you know? The beautiful thing about WW is that is all about balance, living your life. (I did eat two pieces – one for dessert and one for breakfast the next morning – and I didn’t feel bad about it.)

But, guys, I’m just not willing to live without this cake, and I’m not willing to spend 14 points for ONE PIECE. So, I did what any food-loving, points-counting girl would do: I blew the old recipe apart and made it WW-friendly. Do you know how awesome it feels to know that I took something that was 14 points per slice down to 4 points per slice? So good.

I took a photo of this because I forgot that this existed, and I didn’t want anyone to miss out. I share this because last time I made this, I forgot to flour my baking dish and while I don’t think it’s the end of the world, my mom’s recipe said to do that. The thing about flouring baking dishes is that I hate doing it, so this is an amazing product that makes it so I don’t have to do it. I’ve used it for more than just this recipe, too, and everything I’ve made has turned out great. When I saw it in my pantry, you better believe I put my flour away and congratulated myself for always having my own back.

• 

• 

The recipe is really easy. It’s basically broken down into two parts, as most things with baking does – your wet ingredients and your dry ingredients. It’s basically a dump and stir sort of situation with the wet ingredients and you whisk them all together. It looks gross at first, but you want the pumpkin mixture to be smooth.

The other thing I should probably talk about is my Monkfruit Sweetner. This is something I came across when I was making the 2 Point Apple Cider Donuts from Pound Dropper. It’s a zero point sugar and it’s a 1:1 sugar replacement, which I like because I don’t have to figure out any sort of ratios. It makes it really easy to just substitute in place of real sugar and save on all those points. It also has a sugar-like granular texture, so it makes it seem exactly like sugar. I noticed with the donuts that there was a weird cooling sensation when it was the cinnamon sugar coating, but when it’s mixed into something and baked that sensation isn’t there.

• 

• 

• 

The cake part needs to be crumbly. In my mom’s recipe, she mixed the cake mix with a stick of melted butter. While that is delicious, that is just so naughty – and so many more points than I’m willing to spend. So, I discovered that swapping the butter for the apple sauce is just as good and gets us the same desired crumbly mixture. After stirring and mixing for a minute, I decided at the last second that it needed just a bit more moisture, so a tablespoon of fat free Greek yogurt did the trick. What a versatile ingredient, you know? It’s good for just about everything! When I say crumbly, you want to make sure that the batter isn’t white and flour-y anymore. It should be clumping together in various sizes with some smaller crumbs too.

• 

• 

• 

Once both parts are all mixed up and ready to go, then it’s time to layer it in the prepared pan. You start by pouring the pumpkin mixture into the pan first so it sets on the bottom. Next, you crumble the cake crumbles on top.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

The cake bakes in the oven for 40 minutes. A cake tester may come out clean at 35, but I like it better when it’s more cakey and less gooey, so I let it go the full 40 minutes. The cake mixture soaks in the pumpkin liquid and puffs up as it cooks in the oven, but there’s still a layer of that sweet pumpkin mixture at the bottom of the piece. It’s glorious.

• 

• 

I like to let it cool to room temperature, so the cake has time to firm up and the pumpkin has time to set after baking. Once it’s cooled, I cut it into 16 pieces to get each point down to 4 pieces, but it can be cut into 12 pieces for 5 points apiece. It honestly just depends on how many your trying to feed and how big of a piece you want – I’ve done it both ways. If you’re my husband, you’ll eat three pieces at one time because you have zero self-control.

It’s delicious on it’s own, but if you really want to feel fancy and extra decadent, top it with a scoop of cool whip or a spritz of fat free Reddi Whip.

Did you try this recipe? I’d love to see how it turned out!
Snap a photo and tag @glimpseofgrace on Instagram!