Instant Pumpkin Bundt Cake

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What I like most about this recipe is its simplicity. You don’t need a scale or any complicated steps—you can simply measure out most of the ingredients using a mug. Plus, it’s a great way to use up any leftover pumpkin puree, perhaps from making soup or another fall recipe.

Several ingredients work together to give this cake its moist texture. Pumpkin purée adds tenderness to the cake, apple purée provides a pleasant natural sweetness, and cottage cheese helps keep the batter beautifully moist. Almond flour also adds a delicate nutty flavor that pairs perfectly with the fall spices.

I've come to love this combination, especially with a little St. Dalfour pear jam and vanilla Greek yogurt. Together, they make a delicious fall dessert that you can enjoy with coffee, as a sweet breakfast, or as an afternoon snack.

Ready in an hour

Serves 12–14

Difficulty simple

Ingredients

For 1 standard bundt pan | 250-ml mug

1 cup of purée total—more than half of the cup consists of thicker pumpkin purée, and the rest is apple purée or apple-pear purée
1 cup all-purpose flour
½ cup of fine almond flour
3 eggs
½ cup of cane or coconut sugar (you can adjust the amount depending on how sweet the purée is)
100 g of low-fat cottage cheese, ideally the firmer kind sold in a tub
⅓ cup of oil
1 packet of baking powder (12 g)
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon of gingerbread or pumpkin spice
pinch of salt
grated zest from part of an orange, to taste

For finishing and serving:

St. Dalfour Pear Jam
Greek yogurt
a little vanilla

Method

First, preheat the oven to 170 °C, ideally using both top and bottom heat.
Carefully grease the bundt pan and dust it with flour. Be sure to coat all the crevices and the central tube so that the cake will come out easily after baking.
Beat the eggs with the sugar. Crack three eggs into a large bowl, add cane or coconut sugar, and beat for a few minutes until the mixture lightens slightly and becomes fluffier. You can adjust the amount of sugar depending on how sweet your purée is. If the apple purée is naturally sweeter, there’s no need to add too much sugar.
Add the puree, cottage cheese, and orange zest. Gradually add the oil, pumpkin and apple purees, and low-fat cottage cheese to the beaten eggs.
Mix everything together until you have a smooth, creamy mixture. Finally, add freshly grated orange zest.
In my opinion, the orange zest is one of the most important details in the entire recipe. It gives the cake a wonderful aroma and adds a freshness that nicely balances the sweetness of the pumpkin and the more pronounced fall spices.
In a second bowl, mix together the all-purpose flour, fine almond flour, baking powder, cinnamon, gingerbread or pumpkin spice, and a pinch of salt. Gradually add the dry mixture to the wet ingredients and stir briefly, just until everything is combined.
The finished batter should be smooth, creamy, and fairly thick, but it should still pour easily into the pan.
Pour the batter into the prepared bundt pan and gently smooth the surface.
Bake in a preheated oven for about 55–70 minutes. The exact time depends on the size and material of the pan, the consistency of the purée, and the specific oven.
Toward the end of baking, check the cake with a toothpick. Insert it into the highest part of the batter, and if it comes out without any raw batter clinging to it, the cake is done. A few moist crumbs are okay.
If the cake starts to brown quickly on the surface but isn't quite done on the inside yet, you can loosely cover it with aluminum foil toward the end of baking.
After baking, let the cake rest in the pan for about 15 minutes.
Then carefully turn it out onto a cooling rack or serving plate and let it cool.

Tips and tricks

Thanks to the pumpkin, apple, and cottage cheese, this cake is pleasantly moist, so I recommend letting it cool at least a little before slicing so that the slices cut cleanly and don't crumble.
Adjust the amount of sugar to taste. Pumpkin and fruit purees vary in sweetness. If you're using sweetened fruit puree, you can reduce the amount of sugar you add slightly.