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Pumpkin Spice Latte Cake
This soft and moist pumpkin cake is swirled with coffee batter, brushed with espresso syrup and topped with creamy espresso buttercream. If you love pumpkin spice lattes, then you will absolutely love this cake! It's packed full of Fall flavors and hard to stop at just one slice!
Ingredients
Pumpkin Cake Batter:
- 1 ¼ cups (180g) all-purpose flour
- ¾ cup (150g) granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice (or make your own homemade pumpkin pie spice)
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ¾ cup (180ml) pure pumpkin puree
- ⅓ cup (80ml) oil
- 1 large egg, at room temperature
- ⅓ cup (80ml) full fat plain yogurt
- 1 teaspoon (5ml) pure vanilla extract
- ¾ teaspoon espresso powder
Latte Soak:
- 2 tablespoon (30ml) brewed espresso or strong coffee (or ½ teaspoon espresso powder dissolved in 2 tablespoon hot water)
- 1 tablespoon (15ml) light cream
- 2 tablespoon (30g) packed light brown sugar
Latte Frosting:
- ⅓ cup (75g) unsalted butter, very soft
- 1 cup (120g) powdered confectioner's sugar
- 2 tablespoon (15ml) light or heavy cream
- ¼ teaspoon espresso powder
- ½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease a 9×9 inch light metal baking pan and line it with parchment paper.
- Make the pumpkin cake. Combine flour, sugar, pumpkin pie spice, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a large bowl and whisk to blend evenly.
- Combine pumpkin puree, oil, egg, yogurt and vanilla in a medium bowl and whisk well until smooth. Add this mixture to the bowl with the dry ingredients and gently fold together until the batter is uniform.
- Transfer ½ cup of batter to a separate small bowl, sprinkle ¾ teaspoon espresso powder over top and gently stir it in.
- Pour the pumpkin batter into the prepared baking pan and spread it out evenly. Dollop the espresso batter randomly on top and swirl it in with a knife or a small offset spatula. Bake for 20-25 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
- Transfer pan to a wire rack and let the cake cool in the pan for 20 minutes, then use the parchment overhang to lift the cake out and transfer to the rack to finish cooling.
- Make the latte soak. While the cake cools, make the latte soak by mixing together the espresso, cream and brown sugar until the sugar is completely dissolved. After the cake is cooled to room temperature, poke holes in the top using a skewer. Brush the syrup generously and evenly over the cake to let it soak in a bit. (I like to reserve just a couple of teaspoons of the syrup to drizzle over the frosted cake for decoration).
- Make the frosting. Beat the very soft butter with powdered sugar until very fluffy. Add 1 tablespoon cream and vanilla. Sprinkle the espresso powder on top of the cream and beat until combined. Gradually beat in the remaining tablespoon of cream until smooth and creamy.
- Decorate the cake. Spread the creamy frosting all over the cake and then drizzle with a bit of the coffee syrup and sprinkle with cinnamon.
