Pumpkin cake with spiced crème fraîche

At first I thought I'd wait until Halloween to post this recipe, but thankfully I realised that someone might actually want to bake a pumpkin cake for the occasion and in order to do so I'd need to post the recipe a bit before the day itself.

Until recently, I had never though much of Halloween as to me it was a foreign (I'd even say a very US) thing to celebrate. But after trying pumpkin cake in one of my classes at school 6 years ago the whole concept of Halloween became a bit more familiar. I wouldn't say that I'm fascinated with Halloween now, but being allowed to dress up one night a year and then going out with friends is a lot of fun...

But, back to the cake now. I got the recipe from my English teacher who allowed me to post it on my blog. I fell in love with the cake the moment I tried it and I've made it for four past Halloweens and plan on carrying baking it for years to come. If you like carrot cake you are absolutely going to love this pumpkin cake - it is moist, soft and just melts in your mouth. And in addition it fills your kitchen with an amazing cinnamon smell. I do have to admit that grating the pumpkin is a tedious and time-consuming task, but the result is so worth it. And to add a little twist to the cake, I served it with a dollop of spiced crème fraîche, but trust me - the cake is incredibly delicious even without the crème fraîche on its side.

For past years I have made the cake using a different sized class and therefore the quantities here are just an indication of how much of what went into my cake this time. I'd suggest you take a normal 200-250ml glass and use that to measure the quantities (or even better, rely on you 'gut feeling' to determine the exact amount of ingredients needed).

Ingredients
-  1 glass of grated pumpkin (300g)
- 1 glass of sour cream (200ml)
- 100-150g butter, melted
- 1-2 glasses of sugar (300g)
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 eggs
- Lots of cinnamon (you can never have enough of it)
- 2 tsp baking powder
- flour (5tbsp)

- Crème fraîche
- Sugar
- Cinnamon

Directions
Heat the oven to 180C. Melt the butter and mix in the sugar and allow it to cool. In the meantime grate the pumpkin. When the butter and sugar mixture has cooled down add eggs, pumpkin and sour cream and mix. Then add flour with baking powder, cinnamon and salt and mix. Add more flour if necessary - make sure that the batter is not too thick nor too liquid. Pour the batter into a baking tin (lines with baking parchment) and cook for around 20-30 minutes (or until nicely cooked). Cooking time depends on the consistency of the cake you prefer (a bit gooey or well done) as well as the size of the baking tin you're using.

For the crème fraîche topping, mix crème fraîche with good amount of cinnamon and sugar and then place on top of the cake to serve. Your can serve it either warm or cold - its delicious both ways. And as there can never be enough cinnamon, I sprinkled some on top of the crème fraîche and on the plate.