Pumpkin and spice loaf cake — a Honey & Co recipe

The scent of baking butter, sugar, caramelised pumpkin, nutmeg and cinnamon used to conjure up an autumnal ideal of wholesome domestic bliss: New England farmhouses in a blaze of red, maroon and orange. But somewhere down the line, probably in a coffee-scented boardroom in Seattle, this has been co-opted by Big Corp, and pumpkin-spice season entered our lives.

The term is now used from mid-September to the end of November to sell us everything from sickly sweet coffee concoctions to candles, room spray and bizarrely appetising soap bars. The most disturbing example we saw was for raw, vegan, pumpkin-spiced dog food, advertised with an image of a gaggle of labradoodle puppies whose auburn coat colour could only be described as — you guessed it — pumpkin spice.

If, like us, pumpkin-spice season has ruined spiced-pumpkin cakes for you, don’t let Big Corp win. This is pumpkin cake, yes, and it has many spices, but is unlike anything your local mega coffee chain can offer. There’s no cinnamon, not a grating of nutmeg and it is not sickly sweet. Instead, a good, earthy baseline of turmeric gives this cake its glow, balanced by the infinite complexity of spice and a high note of sharp, cooling cardamom and zingy ginger.

For texture and added interest there are hazelnuts, toffee-sweet dates and candied ginger. The hardest part of the preparation is grating the pumpkin, which is not hard at all. The rest is just mixing and baking. The scent from the oven will take you to different places, all of them good. This is pumpkin spice season, reclaimed.

Pumpkin and spice loaf cake

To fit a large 1kg loaf tin

For the topping

1. Heat your oven to 170C with fan assist.

2. Mix all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl.

3. Use a coarse grater or a small food processor to blitz the pumpkin, then add that, and the rest of the cake ingredients, to the bowl. Mix well to combine, then transfer to a lined loaf tin. Make sure to leave some room for the cake to grow about 2cm to 3cm below the top. If your tin is a little too small, transfer a little mix into a small muffin tin.

4. Mix the topping ingredients together and sprinkle all over the top of the cake, then pop into the oven to bake for about an hour, until springy to the touch.

5. Cool in the tin before removing and serving.

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