Hanim Cooks!

Pumpkin Cake with Golden Syrup Frosting.

My (tiny) obsession with pumpkin continues. 

This has got the be, by far, the ugliest photo of sliced cake in the world. I made a mistake of putting the frosting when the cake was not cooled completely. Complete idiot. And it doesn’t help that it was such a humid day. And I didn’t get the sun I wanted for this picture. Oh whatever!

If you’re not turned off by the sight of this picture, here’s the recipe:

Ingredients

Cake

1/2 cup butter
2 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tablespoon nutmeg
1/2 tablespoon cinnamon
2 eggs
1 1/2 cup fine sugar
1 cup pumpkin puree

Golden Syrup Frosting

1/2 cup butter, soft
250g reduced-fat cream cheese, soft
1/4 cup golden syrup

Method

Preheat oven to 125 degree Celsius. Butter a 9-inch round springform pan.

In a bowl, sieve and whisk flour, baking soda, cinnamon and nutmeg. In another bowl, cream sugar and butter until pale. Whisk in egg and pumpkin puree until combined. Add dry ingredients to pumpkin mixture and mix gently until all smooth and combined.

Place the batter into the pan. Bake up to 45 minutes until toothpick inserted in center of cake come out clean. As the cake batter is a bit wet, you might need to cook it slightly longer, but maintain a low heat up to another 15 minutes.

Cool cake in a pan for 1/2 hour, then remove the springform pan and place on wire rack, right side up.

To make the golden syrup frosting, whisk butter, cream cheese and syrup until smooth. Spread on top of the completely cooled cake.

Pumpkin Puree.

Where I come from, canned pumpkin puree is almost unheard of because it’s uncommon. So we make our own. Which I don’t mind because it really doesn’t take that much effort.

I noticed a lot of the recipe calls for the pumpkin to be roasted. I prefer to steam it instead. So here’s what you need to do:

Get a large sharp knife. Cut the pumpkin into quarters or more, depending on the size. Put it in the steamer for half hour or until soft (you should be able to scrap with a spoon effortlessly). Scrap the pumpkin off it’s skin and puree it in the food processor. Or you can use the masher.

(Smashing) Pumpkin Soup.

Traditionally, cooking soup requires you to include heavy cream. Why? Because it’s more delicious that way, duh. But I decided that we can make do without the cream and I opt to use low fat milk instead. And I think it taste rather good. I use it for almost all my soup recipes but here’s one pumpkin soup in commemoration of Halloween.

Ingredients

1 tbsp olive oil
2 onion, peeled and roughly chopped
3 garlic clove, peeled and roughly chopped
2 tsp ground cumin
3 cups pumpkin puree
2 1/2 cups chicken or vegetable stock
1 1/2 cups low fat milk
Few dollops low fat plain yoghurt or sour cream
Croutons

Method

Heat olive oil in a large saucepan. Cook onion and garlic until aromatic and lightly browned. Add cumin and stir for 1 minute over medium heat.

Add 1 cup of chicken stock. Simmer for 5 minutes. Set aside to let cool slightly. Use a stick blender or food processor to blend until smooth. Transfer it back into the saucepan, add the remaining chicken stock. Add the pumpkin puree, stir for few minutes. Add the milk and stir gently until everything combines, for about 10 minutes.

To serve, ladle soup into serving bowls. Top with a dollop of yoghurt or sour cream. Sprinkle some croutons and drizzle olive oil before serving.

Serves 6.