Gluten Free Pumpkin Spice Cake with Pumpkin Cream Cheese Icing

Who doesn’t love pumpkin spice?  Since it is October, and pumpkin is EVERYWHERE, I decided to jump on the bandwagon and create something delicious.  Last week I challenged myself to come up with a gluten free pumpkin spice cake recipe that tastes like a delicious, gluten filled cake.  After about eight failed attempts, I finally got the taste and texture just right.  And I even had a few taste testers give their stamp of approval.  So, the cake you have all been waiting for:

The Perfect Fall Pumpkin Spice Quinoa Cake with Pumpkin Cream Cheese Frosting

[Note: The cake is gluten free and dairy free.  The icing is made of cream cheese, so it is not dairy free.]

Finished Product! It tastes as amazing as it looks. 

Ingredients:

2 cups cooked and cooled quinoa

4 eggs

½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract

3 tablespoons ghee [clarified butter]

1 ½ cups light brown sugar

2 ½ teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons pumpkin spice **

pinch of salt

Preheat the convection oven to 350 degrees.  Grease a round, 8-inch cake pan and line bottom with parchment paper.

Mix eggs and vanilla in a food processor for about 30 seconds to blend.  Add cooked and cooled quinoa. [Quinoa needs to be 2 cups cooked.  The quinoa needs to be cool because using warm or hot quinoa makes it thick and pasty, creating the wrong texture.  I cook the quinoa the day before I make the cake and refrigerate overnight.]  The quinoa, eggs, and vanilla need to be mixed until smooth.  This will take a few minutes and you will likely need to stop the food processor to scrape the sides of the bowl.  Once smooth, add the ghee and blend for another minute.

In a mixing bowl, combine the light brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and pumpkin spice.  Stir until blended.  Add the quinoa mixture to the dry ingredients.  Use a spoon or whisk to combine. (see picture to the below)

This is what the quinoa mixture and the dry ingredients will look like before whisking to combine

I only cook one cake at a time since I only have one 8- inch cake pan.  If you have two, just make sure the batter is split evenly.  Bake the cake at 350 degrees for 40 to 45 minutes.  The cake is done when no batter comes off on a knife or toothpick. 

Keep cake in the pan on a cooling rack for 20 minutes.  Remove the cake by flipping cake pan over.  Cake should fall out with ease.  Remove parchment paper and cool completely.   I put the cakes in the fridge for a while before I put the icing on the cake.

** Pumpkin Spice: Pumpkin spice is the combination of ground cinnamon, ground ginger, ground nutmeg, and either ground all spice or ground cloves. 

To make two teaspoons worth of pumpkin spice, mix:

         1 teaspoon cinnamon

         ½ teaspoon ground ginger

         ¼ teaspoon ground all spice or cloves

         ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Icing

         12 oz. cream cheese at room temperature.

         3 to 4 cups powdered sugar (Depends on how sweet you want the icing.)

         1 to 2 tablespoons pumpkin puree (Again, depends on your taste and how much pumpkin flavor you want)

        

Combine cream cheese and pumpkin puree in a standing mixer or with a hand mixer.  Slowly add powdered sugar, keeping the speed of the mixer on low so you don’t splash powdered sugar all over yourself and your kitchen. [Trust me, this is not a fun mess to clean up.]  Once the ingredients are completely combined, turn speed of mixer up and mix until cream cheese icing is fluffy. 

I put the icing in the fridge a few hours and remix it right before I put the icing on the cake.  This step is not necessary, I just prefer my icing to be slightly chilled because it is easier to spread it on the cake when it isn’t as runny.  But this is just what you prefer. 

Enjoy!  Hope y’all like it!

-Kim