Pumpkin Cake is a crock-pot dessert recipe that came to me later in life but when it showed up, it did so in a big way.
This pumpkin cake recipe was our first recipe to go viral, within our first year of starting Platter Talk, back in 2013.
Featured in Country Living, Better Homes and Garden, House Beautiful, MSN Food, and in a variety of other high-profile media outlets, you can make this easy pumpkin cake recipe in just two hours at home.
Pumpkin Cake
Halloween is still a few weeks away, but suddenly there are gourds and pumpkins popping up all over the place.
Speaking of pumpkins, one of them ended up in the most unexpected places the other day – in my slow cooker. When it came out, it looked like this:
Growing up on a big Mennonite family farm, I always had a special relation ship with pumpkins.
Each year I would plant a row or two in my mom’s huge garden and as I grew older, I would try to grow the biggest pumpkins possible.
I tried milk-feeding them, like I read about int the Little House on the Prairie books, using fresh milk and cream from our cows via a bowl and a candle wick spliced into the pumpkin vines.
It wasn’t until the fall season when I first left for college that some of my pumpkins had tipped the scale at over 40 pounds!
As fate would have it, I was over 100 miles away and wasn’t even able to bask in the glory of my pumpkin pride.
And then 35 years later this pumpkin cake recipe showed up.
It was given to my recipe pimp and beautiful friend, Amy, who picked it up in the grocery store check-out isle.
I made this easy pumpkin dump cake for my new food and recipe blog, and all of the sudden, Platter Talk became real.
And so did this incredibly simple crock-pot dessert.
Pumpkin Dump Cake Ingredients
- Packed pumpkin
- Flour
- Sugar
- Butter
- Eggs
- Baking Powder
- Baking Soda
- Pumpkin Spice
- Salt
- Caramel Sauce (optional topping)
Pumpkin Cake Highlights
- This pumpkin dessert recipe is inexpensive or downright cheap at less than $10 for the whole thing.
- Make this crock-pot dessert in just two hours.
- You don’t need to be a baker to make this pumpkin dump cake, anyone can put it together!
- Much like our 3-Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies
- Most important, the taste of this pumpkin cake recipe is nothing short of a miracle, IMHO.
In conclusion, this pumpkin cake recipe pretty much has it all.
It’s affordable, it’s extremely easy to prepare, and it is scary delicious.
This is the perfect crock-pot dessert recipe to make for guests or family, for Halloween, Thanksgiving, or any holiday.
If you were like me and thought that crock pots were just for making dinner and meals for the family while you are spending your entire day doing something else, I say, “Think again.
How to Make this Pumpkin Cake in an Oven
If you don’t have a slow cooker, you can make this slow cooker cake in an oven. Here is how to do that:
- Bake at 350° F.
- The type of pan you have will determine how long to bake.
- A loaf pan will require 45 minutes, a sheet cake or double layer cake will take about 30 minutes.
- It is recommended that you not use a glass baking pan for this cake as metal and ceramic pans seem to help keep the batter from falling.
To avoid using processed (granulated white sugar), you can use 1/3 cup of maple syrup and 1/3 cup of honey.
If you don’t want to use butter, readers have used 2/3 cup of sunflower oil with great success.
Finally, some people have added a little extra pumpkin spice to the batter and a cap-full of vanilla.
Try this recipe and let us know how you make it!
PS: See us making this Pumpkin Cake on WLUK Fox 11, Living with Amy!
Dan and Scott making this crockpot dessert on Living with Amy, in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
More of our Favorite Pumpkin Dessert Recipes:
Some of our Most Popular Holiday Recipes
- Giblet Gravy
- How to Roast Prime Rib
- Southern Cornbread Dressing
- Open Face Apple Pie
- Cherry Christmas Cookies
PS: Looking for another fall slow cooker recipe? Try our Crock-Pot Apple Butter! It’s great on toast and as an ingredient for cakes, cookies, breads, meatloaf and pork recipes!
If you’ve tried this recipe for Slow Cooker Pumpkin Cake or any other recipe on Platter Talk, please let us know your thoughts in the comments below, we love hearing from you! You can also FOLLOW US on FACEBOOK, INSTAGRAM, and PINTEREST to see more delicious food and what we have cooking.
Slow Cooker Sticky Caramel Pumpkin Cake
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice or ground cinnamon
- 1 1/3 cups sugar
- 1 cup butter softened
- 4 eggs at room temperature
- 15 oz solid pack pumpkin 1 can
- 16 oz caramel sauce 1 jar
Instructions
- Coat 4 1/2 quart slow cooker with nonstick cooking spray, turn to "high."
- Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and pumpkin pie spice in mixing bowl.
- Beat sugar and butter in large bowl with electric mixer for about 3 minutes, until light.
- Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each one.
- Add packed pumpkin, blend until well mixed.
- Gradually add flour mixture and beat at low speed for a minute or so until smooth.
- Spread evenly in slow cooker and cover.
- Cook on high setting 2 hours or until center-inserted tooth pick comes out clean.
- Let cake stand, uncovered 10 minutes.
- Invert onto wire rack, invert again onto serving plate.
- Drizzle half of caramel sauce over cake. Serve warm with additional sauce.
Video
Nutrition
Updated from the original post of September 19, 2014
Sabell says
I made this recipe with a couple substitutions with what I had on hand (used up the coconut sugar last week – I generally tend not to use regular sugar since it spikes my blood a bit too much). So: instead of sugar – 1/3 cup maple syrup + 1/3 cup honey, instead of butter (I love butter, but my Man can’t do too much of that) – 2/3 cup sunflower oil, and 2 additions: 1 Tablespoon Vanilla (Vanilla shots anyone? 😉 can’t get enough of the stuff) and an extra 2 tsp. of pumpkin pie spice powder.
I baked the cake in 2 separate loaf pans since I don’t have a slow cooker or a cake pan; they turned out absolutely decadent and marvelously richly moist! I baked them for 45 minutes at 350. FYI – the pyrex glass loaf pan cooks faster, so I removed it a couple minutes before the clay loaf pan I used. Also, the pyrex glass loaf pan caused my cake to flatten after I pulled it out to cool, but stayed fluffy while baking, and the clay loaf pan held the cake’s shape quite nicely = evenly fluffy throughout bake time and cool time. I love my Clay Loaf Pan!
Thank you for the recipe! My Man and I are having cake for breakfast 😉 Yum! No drizzle since the cakes are sweet to our liking. Ok, maybe a little more maple syrup and honey on top (slirp, smack, and gone!).
Dan from Platter Talk says
Thanks for this comment, Sabell. So many people have asked if this slow cooker dessert can be made in an oven and it’s something I haven’t tried yet. I think that other people have done this but you are the first person to follow-up with the results, and we really appreciate it. Thanks so much for reading Platter Talk and we hope you can find more recipes on our site that you enjoy!