Frosted Pumpkin Cake

This is an extraordinary light, fluffy and delicious pumpkin cake! The basic recipe just needed a few tweaks...I added an extra 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice, and 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg. I also baked the cake in a 9 x9 inch pan as I could tell by looking at the amount of batter that a 13 by 9 pan was too big. The cake rose beautifully. I think that the negative reviewers must be inexperienced bakers. To ensure a light and fluffy cake, flour MUST be spooned lightly into measuring cups, not scooped. Also the size pan is imperative when baking a cake and if it looks like you don't have enough batter for the pan size listed than size down! Try this cake...it is exceptional!

I should have checked the reviews before making this recipe. I baked mine in muffin tins & mini loaves, hoping to be able to share with friends, but this isn't really anything special enough to share. As I now see others have reviewed, the cake flavor wasn't pumpkin-pie enough for me. I wish I would have added a few other spices or just used pumpkin pie spice. But the biggest drawback for me is the frosting. The powdered sugar made this much too sweet and sugary for my liking. A more traditional cream cheese frosting would be much better on this in my opinion. Also, as others have noted, the batter itself baked exactly into the original shape in the pans - there was no rising or smoothing of the finished product. Presentation is important to me when sharing goodies with others, so these will stay here & only be eaten by family.

Made this for a church coffee hour and it was a huge hit. I followed the recipe and found the cake sweet and moist with a great pumpkin flavor. The frosting was excellent!

I had made these once before and remembered they were very moist, but didn't remember much else about them. This time I liked them, but didn't love them. I probably should have added all the sugar because they seem a bit more of a breakfast item because of their lack of sweetness. However, I thought the pumpkin taste was prominent enough but understand people's desire to add more spices to enhance the pumpkin flavor. As for the texture, I wouldn't say they're dense in a filling way, but they are definitely very moist and a bit doughy; I would have liked if they had been a bit more airy but still very moist (like Cooking Light's Pumpkin Pie Cake (which I loved)). I did not make the icing this time because I didn't have cream cheese on hand, but I'm sure that would have added to this cake's success. They are more like Pumpkin bites or bars like others have been saying. I like how there's not much butter or sugar in them but I wonder if it took away from its success.

I weigh all my flours, and this was a dense, flavorless cake. I love pumpkin but just couldn't taste it.