These adorable pumpkin shaped cakes can be used for many different occasions: Halloween, fall harvest party, we recently made one for a friend’s son’s smash cake. For this Thanksgiving wow your guests by making mini pumpkin cakes to create an edible pumpkin patch centerpiece.
What You Need
You will need a mini bundt pan, but if you are not wanting to make multiple small pumpkins you can use a traditional bundt pan to make one large pumpkin. Bake your cakes and let them cool completely before assembling and decorating. You will also need a batch of vanilla buttercream. Feel free to fill your cakes with your preferred filling, we love pumpkin paired with cream cheese buttercream, but we highly recommend using our vanilla buttercream for the outside as it is easy to work with and decorate with. Both pumpkin cake and vanilla buttercream recipes are below.
To Assemble the Pumpkins
Lay your bundt cakes out with the rounded side down. Trim the top of the cake so it is flat. Don’t discard the scraps as you will use them in the next step. Frost the flat side of one cake then top it with another cake. Use a chunk of the cake trimmings to fill in the hole of the top. Crumb coat your cake and refrigerate about 30 minutes to chill.
Decorating Your Pumpkins
We chose to do a combination of white and orange pumpkins. We love white pumpkins, but also wanted to add some traditional pumpkins in the mix. Feel free to frost your pumpkins in your preferred color. Make sure to reserve some frosting to color brown for the stem and green for the vines.
After your crumb coated cakes have had time to chill, take one at a time out of the fridge to decorate. Frost your cake and use a small offset spatula or small cake detailer to shape your cake like a pumpkin (we love The Tiny Tool from Cake Safe). You can also use the back side or a spoon to help smooth some areas which we found helpful. Unfortunately we completely forgot to take pictures as we were decorating the pumpkins. Blogger fail! If you are having a hard time getting the exact look you want or your buttercream is getting to soft to work with, try refrigerating your cake for a bit since chilled buttercream is easier to sculpt.
After all you cakes are frosted chill them in the fridge while you prepare your buttercream for the stem and vines. You will need a pretty stiff buttercream for the stem and vines to hold shape. If your buttercream is too soft try placing it in the fridge for a bit. You can also stiffen buttercream by adding a little powdered sugar. To create the stem we used Ateco tip 828. For the vines we used Wilton tip #5. If you are making one large pumpkin you will want to use a larger round tip like Wilton tip #10. For the leaves we used Wilton tip #352. You can also use fondant or modeling chocolate to create the stem and vines.
Pumpkin Cake
Ingredients
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tbsp pumpkin pie spice
- 1/2 cup melted butter
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1 can pumpkin puree 15 oz (not pumpkin pie filling)
- 4 large eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla
Instructions
- Pre heat oven to 350 degrees and grease and flour your bundt pan.
- In a medium bowl combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and pumpkin pie spice. Set aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer combine the melted butter, oil, sugars, pumpkin puree, eggs, vanilla and beat on low until combined.
- With the mixer on low slowly add the dry ingredients until combined and there are no more lumps.
- Pour batter into mini bundt pans and bake for about 20 minutes. If you are using a large bundt pan it can take anywhere from 45-60 minutes. Keep an eye on the cake and remove from the oven when a toothpick comes out clean.
- Let the cakes cool in the pan for about 10 minutes (20 for large cake) then turn pan upside down to let the cakes slide out. If needed use a small knife to loosen the edge of the cake from the pan.
Vanilla Buttercream
Ingredients
- 2 cups unsalted butter slightly cold
- 6 cups powdered sugar
- 1/2 tbsp vanilla
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 tbsp heavy whipping cream
Instructions
- In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter. Start off at a low speed and then gradually increase until the butter is light in color and smooth. Use a rubber spatula to scrape the bowl as needed.
- Add the powdered sugar, one cup at a time, mixing at a low speed until fully incorporated before you add the next cup.
- Add the heavy cream (start with 2 tbsp), vanilla and salt and beat at a low speed for about 20 seconds. If you feel your buttercream is too stiff you can add the third tablespoon of cream. Increase the speed to high and beat for about 3-5 minutes until the mixture is perfectly smooth and fluffy. Stop the mixer once to scrape the bowl.
- Stir the buttercream by hand to remove any air bubbles.
