This is a delicious pumpkin cake which I tend to make in autumn, but it's good at any time of year.
If you don't have any marzipan on hand for the stem you could always use an ice cream cone cup cake. They're very easy to make. Just take some cake batter and fill the cone 3/4 full and bake. Then just flip it upside down after it's been baked into the hole and frost with chocolate frosting. Voila! there's a stem that you can eat! - 22 Oct 2007 (Review from Allrecipes USA and Canada)
This was fabulous! The only change I would make is to add 1 1/2 tsp. salt instead of 1/4 tsp. (Most homemade cakes like this call for 1 1/2 tsp. salt.) I made 2 of these for Halloween. I think I should have followed other reviewers and used 1/2 cup applesauce + 1/2 cup oil. 1 cup of oil is a lot of oil! I frosted the first cake with a homemade buttercream frosting, but it sure made the cake sweet. For the second cake, I used a powdered sugar drizzle (1 cup powdered sugar + 1 Tbl. milk), tinted orange, with green sugar sprinkles on the top of the cake, then I decorated it with some plastic spiders. Festive! I would definitely used the powdered sugar glaze again. Thanks for the recipe! - 03 Nov 2006 (Review from Allrecipes USA and Canada)
This was so moist and awesome! My husband hates pumpkin anything and he LOVED this! I took previous advice and cut the white sugar to 1 cup, added 2/3 cup brown sugar and added 1 tsp. baking powder in addition to the baking soda. Next time I will add an additional 1/2 tsp. baking powder. I also do not care for cloves so I omitted them and added 1/2 tsp. ground ginger and cut the nutmeg to 1/2 tsp. as well. It was so yummy covered with cream cheese icing. Also, I baked it in a 9 x 13 pan so you will need to cut the baking time down to about 40-45 min. Definitely do not want to overbake this one. - 24 Oct 2005 (Review from Allrecipes USA and Canada)