With Christmas just a few days away and my traditional Christmas Cake yet not gone into the oven, all thanks to my winter laziness and with the beginning of holiday season lot of friends drop by to wish us early Christmas before leaving for holidays and also winter break started for many of the kiddies in the block and they also drop in sometime to play with Momo and surprisingly Momo love their company more than friends from his community. So I baked this Chai Spiced Pumpkin Cake with the Christmas themed decoration to celebrate pre Christmas time.
Ingredients:
3/4 Cup pumpkin puree (see recipe here)
3/4 Cup light brown sugar
2 eggs, at room temperature
2 Tbsp any flavorless oil (Canola, Refined or Olive Oil)
1 ¼ Cup all purpose flour
1 ¼ Tsp baking powder
¼ Tsp baking soda
A pinch of salt
½ Tsp grated nutmeg
½ Tsp cinnamon powder
½ Tsp dried ginger powder
For decoration:
⅓ Cup cream cheese, softened
¼ Cup powdered sugar
1 Tsp vanilla essence
4 Tbsp milk, at room temperature
Instructions:
Grease 7″ square tin with oil and line it with parchment paper.
In a large bowl, whisk together pumpkin puree, brown sugar, eggs and oil until all combined well and creamy in texture. Do not beat for too long after adding eggs.
Sift all the dry ingredients including spices in a separate bowl.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet batter in two batches. Using spatula. mix well to make a smooth batter. Do not overmix the batter else result will be hard cake.
If the batter seems to be thick add 2 – 4 tbsp of milk and combine well.
Preheat oven at 180 C. Pour the batter in the prepared tin. Bake for 40 – 45 minutes.
Once golden brown on the top and a tester comes out clean, cake is ready to come out of the oven.
Let it cool down completely at room temperature over a wire rack before cutting into pieces.
For decoration, mix all ingredients with a wire whisk until it is of dropping consistency. Add a few drops more milk if required. But it should not be too liquid else it will be difficult to form designs with it.
Pipe into a disposable piping bag with a nozzle and form different christmas designs over the cake pieces.
