Pumpkin Spice Cake
Today, I'm sharing our popular scratch Pumpkin Spice Cake recipe with you!
Just as with our moist homemade spice cake recipe, this is a fall cake that you are going to want to come back to again and again.
It is so soft and tender, and should be a staple for fall celebrations!
Table of Contents
Why we Love It
There is so much to love about this Pumpkin Spice Cake!
- Soft texture and tender crumb
- Warm, cozy flavor
- Crowd pleasing fall dessert, perfect as a fall birthday cake recipe, Thanksgiving cake recipe, and more!
- Delicious with any sort of cream cheese frosting, but we love it with spiced cream cheese frosting!
We have several favorite fall cake recipes in our Cake Recipes Section, including Sweet Potato Cake, Maple Pound Cake, Gingerbread Cake, and Apple Spice Cake. However, this delicious homemade Pumpkin Spice Cake tops our list!
How to Make Pumpkin Spice Cake
You can find the full, printable Pumpkin Spice Cake recipe card further down in this post, but here is a quick rundown of our steps!
- First, preheat oven to 350. Grease & flour three 8 inch pans. We also like to line our cake pans with parchment paper.
- In your mixing bowl add the dry ingredients (flour and the next seven ingredients). With the mixer on low speed, mix the dry ingredients for 30 seconds so all will be well blended. Add the pieces of butter a few slices at a time. Mix until the dry ingredients are moistened by the butter and take on the texture of moistened sand. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl.
- In another bowl combine eggs, vegetable oil, pumpkin puree, milk and vanilla. Whisk until well blended, set aside.
- With the mixer on low speed, slowly add approximately half of the egg mixture. Increase to medium speed for 1 ½ minutes. Scrape bottom and sides of the bowl. Add the remaining egg mixture in 2 pourings, beating 20 seconds after each addition.
- Divide the cake batter between the three prepared pans and bake at 350 degrees F for 30-35 minutes or until a wooden skewer comes out clean or with just a few crumbs attached. Let it cool in the pans for 10 minutes on a wire rack and then turn out.
Recipe FAQs
Other Favorite Fall Cakes!
We have SO many favorite cakes for fall. Here are a few more.
Some of our most popular are our Carrot Cake Recipe, Easy Pumpkin Spice Cake, Applesauce Cake, and Gingerbread Cake.
For more favorite fall cake recipes and tutorials, make sure to check out our Fall & Thanksgiving Roundup Post! You'll also find a delicious recipe for homemade pumpkin cupcakes!
We hope that you enjoy this fantastic homemade Pumpkin Spice Cake recipe! It's the only scratch Pumpkin Spice Cake recipe that you'll ever need.
We have lots more Cake Recipes for you to scroll through, including cake recipes from scratch and cake mix recipes.
We also have many Cake Decorating tutorials for you as well!
Here are a few of our favorite cake decorating tutorials for fall:
Have you made this? We would LOVE for you to leave a ⭐️ rating as well as a comment and photo below! We really appreciate your feedback!
Pumpkin Spice Cake {Scratch Recipe}
Ingredients
For the Pumpkin Spice Cake Layers
- 2 Âľ cups (360g) all purpose flour
- 1 Tablespoon (15g) baking powder
- 1 teaspoon (5g) baking soda
- 2 teaspoons (6g) cinnamon
- 1 teaspoons (2)g nutmeg
- ½ teaspoon ginger
- 2 cups (400g) granulated sugar
- ½ teaspoon (3g) salt
- 1 ½ sticks (170g) unsalted butter, softened. It should easily dent when pressed but not be overly soft through and through.
- 4 large eggs, room temperature.
- ÂĽ cup (54g) vegetable oil
- 15 oz (425) Canned Pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)
- ½ cup (121g) milk
- 1 teaspoons (4g) vanilla extract
FOR THE SPICED CREAM CHEESE FROSTING:
- 3 sticks (340g total) unsalted butter, softened
- 339 grams (12 oz) cream cheese, softened (we used 1 ½ packages)
- 1 teaspoon (2g) cinnamon (Adjust amount to your liking)
- ½ teaspoon (1g) nutmeg (Adjust amount to your liking)
- 1 teaspoon (2g) ground ginger (Sift if clumpy. Adjust amount to your liking.)
- 6 - 6 ½ cups confectioners’ sugar (Sifted. Adjust amount to your liking.)
- 2 teaspoons (8g) vanilla extract
Instructions
For the Pumpkin Spice Cake Layers
- This recipe uses the reverse creaming method.)Preheat oven to 350. Grease & flour three 8 inch pans.
- In your mixing bowl add the dry ingredients (flour and the next seven ingredients). With the mixer on low speed, mix the dry ingredients for 30 seconds so all will be well blended. Add the pieces of butter a few slices at a time. Mix until the dry ingredients are moistened by the butter and look like coarse sand. If you pinch some of the mixture between your fingers it will stick together. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl.
- In another bowl combine eggs, oil, pumpkin, milk and vanilla. Whisk until well blended, set aside.
- Method is important in this recipe so with the mixer on LOW speed, SLOWLY add approximately ½ of the egg mixture. Increase to medium speed for 1 ½ minutes. Scrape bottom and sides of the bowl. Add the remaining egg mixture in 2 pourings, beating 20 seconds after each addition.
- Bake at 350 degrees 30 - 35 minutes, let cool in pans 10 minutes then turn out.
To Prepare the Frosting
- Using your mixer beat the butter and cream cheese until well blended. Add the vanilla and spices. With the mixer on low speed gradually add the confectioners’ sugar and mix until it is a good piping consistency.
Hi Melissa bit late I know but I'm wanting to bake this cake. I don't have pumpkin puree or a pumpkin but do have some small munchkin pumpkins different varieties, will they do for the puree as long as I have the weight.
Thank you
Hi Fran, I have only used munchkin pumpkin for decorating purposes. I have read that they can be baked and eaten but I am sorry that I don't have any experience using them. If you give it a try, use the weight listed in the recipe. Let us know if you give it a try.
Mine didn’t really rise much. I did the math to make 3/4 of the batter, put it in 9” pans & baked for 25 mins...
They were cooked through, but didn’t really rise ???? What could have went wrong?
I’m pretty sure my butter was too soft...I live in Maui & I left it for quite a while ????
Hi Melissa,
If I’m using 6 inch cake pans how long would I need to bake them for? Would I be okay with 2 or would I need 3?
Hi Marissa, I am sorry you had a problem with the recipe. If your butter is too soft, air pockets will not be trapped during the creaming of the butter and sugar. This will cause you to have a dense cake that could not rise as high as it should. Also, only making 3/4's of the recipe and baking in 9 inch pans did not give you enough batter. The full recipe could have been baked in two 9 inch pans. I hope you will give it a try another time. When softening the butter, you should be able to press a finger into it without too much pressure and leave an indentation -- without your finger going into it easily. You can speed up the softening by cutting the butter into approximately 1 inch slices onto waxed paper. It will soften quickly in about 10 minutes in most kitchens. Do this just before you need it so it won't become too soft.
Hi Kayla, This recipe makes approximately 7 cups batter. If using 6x2 inch round pans, each pan can hold 2 cups of batter. You can use 3 pans with a little leftover for cupcakes
This cake sounds delicious! I have a question about the cream cheese icing. I’m wanting to try a cake I saw on YouTube where the icing is striped around the outside of the cake and then pumpkins are piped around the perimeter of the cake. I’m wondering if this icing is stiff enough to be used for that.
Hi! Unfortunately my cake turned out as a sad layer. I had to rebake it as it was just raw... Moreover, the frosting was just weird and too sweet - the consistency wasn’t creamy but rather buttery? I think there is something wrong with the recipe... My frosting was brownish because of cinnamon and nutmeg while your is white-ish? Weird.
Hi Susanna, I am sorry that things did not go well. If your cake was raw at the end of baking, it could be that your oven is not heating to the correct temperature. An oven thermometer will help you determine this. They are inexpensive and can often be found at grocery stores, target, amazon.
Hi! Can we omit the ginger in the cake and the frosting? Is it very strong?
Hi Mikaela, I don't think the ginger is too strong but it will be fine to leave it out of the recipe. Your cake will still be very good.