This is my go-to pumpkin Bundt cake recipe because the crumb is incredibly moist, the cake tastes perfectly spiced, and you can top it with anything from salted caramel sauce to cream cheese frosting. You can fill it with chocolate chips, a cinnamon swirl, chopped nuts, or leave it plain. I particularly love it plain with maple icing on top!
I originally published this recipe in 2017 and have since added new photos, a video tutorial, and more helpful success tips.
Moist and dense, this pumpkin Bundt cake delivers BIG. It’s not quite as heavy as a cream cheese pound cake, nor is it quite as light as my regular pumpkin cake. Instead, it meets somewhere in the middle and this place is called pumpkin euphoria.
I make this dessert recipe at least 2 or 3 times every fall season. It’s oh-so-easy, and I haven’t changed the recipe at all over many years of keeping this cake in my fall rotation. There are so many variations between add-ins and toppings, that you could make a different pumpkin Bundt cake practically every day for an entire year. (And you’ll want to… it’s *that* good.)
One reader, Janet, commented: “This was such a hit I’ve had to make it twice!! Was delicious and easy to make, my friends were very impressed! ★★★★★”
One reader, Sherri, commented: “This is the BEST pumpkin cake recipe ever. We leave out the chocolate chips and add pecans. I make the maple glaze recipe and add vanilla and pecans to it. It’s wonderful! ★★★★★“
Here’s Why I Know You’ll Love It
- I know pumpkin desserts. From the best pumpkin cupcakes to the perfect pumpkin pie, I know how to make this star ingredient shine. (And complement it with the right ingredients!)
- No mixer required, just 2 bowls and a whisk
- Conveniently uses 1 standard 15-ounce can of pumpkin
- Supremely moist—knife glides right through it
- Generously spiced with cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves, and allspice
- Excellent so many ways: plain, filled, swirled, or frosted
Use These Key Ingredients
Like all of the recipes on my website and in my cookbooks, I endlessly tested various ingredients and ratios to develop a standout cake with excellent flavor and texture. Here are some key ingredients:
- Baking Soda: 2 teaspoons of baking soda seems like a lot, and it is a lot. But think about the size of a Bundt cake… they’re huge, and need to rise quite a lot in the tall cake pan. I remember trying this recipe with a mix of baking soda AND baking powder, and was never satisfied with the result. In addition to leavening, baking soda deepens a baked good’s color and neutralizes acids. (This cake is filled with acidic ingredients!)
- Spices: Generously spiced is not an understatement! On its own, pumpkin is quite bland, so you need a lot of spice to bring out its flavor. You could even swap some of the individual spices for pumpkin pie spice!
- Oil: You can use vegetable oil or olive oil here. Melted coconut oil works, too, but you’ll want to be sure that you bake the batter immediately after mixing (no standing around, please!) because the coconut oil will very quickly begin to solidify and thicken the batter.
- Eggs: Pumpkin, oil, and flour are big, heavy ingredients so you need eggs in the batter to lift and bind the ingredients together.
- Brown & White Sugars: Again, pumpkin is pretty bland without a little help, so you need plenty of sugar to help bring out its flavor. I use a mix of both brown and white.
- Pure Pumpkin: This Bundt cake conveniently uses 1 15-ounce can of pumpkin. For best results and flavor, I strongly recommend using canned pumpkin puree instead of homemade. I prefer Libby’s brand for this cake.
You also need flour, salt, and vanilla extract.
Substitution Tip
Like when making apple cake or chocolate cake, use oil in this Bundt cake recipe, so you’re guaranteed a super moist cake from the start. You can substitute unsweetened applesauce for half of the oil. (1/2 cup each.) Readers have told me they love the cake this way, and it’s just as moist.
Overview: How to Make My Pumpkin Bundt Cake
This recipe actually uses the same base batter as my pumpkin cream cheese Bundt cake. And, like I mentioned above, the process couldn’t be easier!
Combine the wet and dry ingredients separately, then whisk them together. Expect a very thick batter, almost like pumpkin pancakes batter:
And here’s the batter again, but with chocolate chips:
Instead of an add-in like chocolate chips, you could fill the pumpkin Bundt cake with the chai spice swirl from this chai spice cinnamon swirl Bundt cake, or try my cream cheese-filled pumpkin Bundt cake (same batter!).
Favorite Bundt Pan to Use
Do you make a lot of Bundt cakes? I do! You need a Bundt pan that’s 9.5 to 10.5 inches in diameter, and can hold 10 to 12 cups of batter. Let me share two favorite Bundt cake pan options with you:
- Anolon Bundt Pan: Super quality, heavy-duty, great price, never warps, awesome rubber grips. I’ve been using it for years and, honestly, it’s just as durable as day 1.
- Nordic Ware Bundt Pan: Outstanding quality, heavy-duty, and makes beautiful cakes.
Whichever Bundt pan you use, be sure to grease it very generously before adding the batter. Even if the pan is labeled nonstick, due to the size and weight of a Bundt cake, you NEED a lot of greasing so the cake easily separates from the pan when inverting it.
Pumpkin Bundt Cake Toppings
Like the best things in the kitchen life, we’ll shower this pumpkin Bundt with a glaze. There are so many options here (I love a good icing!), and I list my favorites below.
- Brown Butter Icing from my Peach Bundt Cake
- Maple Icing from Maple Brown Sugar Cookies (pictured above)
- Salted Caramel Sauce (pictured below)
- Chocolate Ganache
- Cream Cheese Frosting
- Homemade Whipped Cream
- Brown Sugar Glaze from my Apple Bundt Cake
- Orange Glaze from my Cranberry Orange Bundt Cake
Pumpkin Bundt Cake
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 65 minutes
- Total Time: 4 hours, 30 minutes
- Yield: serves 12
- Category: Cake
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
This is my go-to pumpkin Bundt cake recipe because the crumb is incredibly moist, the cake tastes perfectly spiced, and you can top it with anything from salted caramel sauce to cream cheese frosting. You can fill it with chocolate chips, a cinnamon swirl, nuts, or leave it plain. I particularly love it plain with the maple icing from these maple brown sugar cookies on top!
Ingredients
- 2 and 3/4 cups (344g) all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled)
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
- 1 cup (240ml) vegetable oil (see Note)
- 4 large eggs
- 1 cup (200g) packed light or dark brown sugar
- 3/4 cup (150g) granulated sugar
- 1 15-ounce (425g) can pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)*
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- optional add-in: 1 and 1/4 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips or chopped walnuts/pecans
Optional Topping Ideas
- optional topping: salted caramel, maple icing, or any listed below
- optional garnish: sprinkle of pumpkin pie spice
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (177°C) and grease a 10–12-cup Bundt pan. (I like this one or this one.)
- Whisk the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, nutmeg, and allspice together in a large bowl. Set aside. Whisk the oil, eggs, brown sugar, granulated sugar, pumpkin, and vanilla extract together until combined. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and use a mixer or whisk until completely combined. Fold in chocolate chips or nuts, if using. Batter is thick, and you’ll have around 5 cups total.
- Spoon/pour the batter into the prepared Bundt pan. Bake for 55–70 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean with just a couple lightly moist crumbs. This is a large, heavy cake so don’t be alarmed if it takes a little longer in your oven.
- Once done, remove from the oven and allow to cool for 2 hours in the pan set on a wire rack. Then invert the slightly cooled Bundt cake onto a wire rack or serving plate/cake stand.
- Allow to cool completely before drizzling with topping/icing and serving. On the pictured cake, I used the maple icing from these maple brown sugar cookies. I also sprinkled a homemade pumpkin pie spice blend on top of the icing before it set.
- Cover leftover cake tightly and store at room temperature for a couple days and/or in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.
Notes
- Make Ahead Instructions: You can make the entire cake ahead of time (before topping with icing). Cover cooled cake and refrigerate it for up to 2 days. Bring to room temperature before icing and serving. Baked cake can be frozen for up to 3 months. Allow to thaw overnight in the refrigerator and bring to room temperature before icing and serving.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Bundt Cake Pan (I like this one or this one) | Glass Mixing Bowls | Whisk | Cooling Rack
- Mini Bundt Cakes: I’ve tested this recipe with mini Bundt pans before and while the mini Bundt cakes taste wonderful, they’re quite dense. If you’d like to try it, the recipe makes 24-30 mini Bundts but that depends on the exact size of your mini Bundt cake pan. Fill them only halfway with batter. The bake time is around 20 to 25 minutes. Instead, for better results with a lighter crumb, I recommend using my pumpkin cupcakes batter for mini pumpkin Bundt cakes. You’ll get about 16.
- Spices: Instead of 1/2 teaspoon each ginger, cloves, nutmeg, and allspice, you can use 2 teaspoons of pumpkin pie spice. (You will still add the 2 teaspoons of ground cinnamon.)
- Oil: You can use vegetable oil, canola oil, avocado oil, or olive oil. Instead of 1 cup of oil, try 1/2 cup (90g) unsweetened applesauce and 1/2 (120ml) cup oil. The cake is just as moist. If you want to use coconut oil, melt it first, and be sure that all of the other ingredients are room temperature. Bake the batter right away, because as the coconut oil begins to cool and solidify, it thickens the batter and could result in an overly dense cake.
- Pumpkin: For best results and flavor, I strongly recommend using canned pumpkin puree over homemade in this recipe. I found the flavor is much better with canned. I prefer Libby’s brand for this cake.
- More Topping Options: Brown Butter Icing from my Peach Bundt Cake, Chocolate Ganache, Cream Cheese Frosting, Homemade Whipped Cream, Brown Sugar Glaze from my Apple Bundt Cake, Orange Glaze from my Cranberry Orange Bundt Cake
Reader Comments and Reviews
Hi Sally, have you tried this recipe with Almond Flour and Truvia for Brown Sugar and Stevia for White sugar? Suggestions?
Hi Mary, We’d love to help but we are not trained in baking with sugar substitutes. For best taste and texture (and so you don’t waste your time trying to adapt this recipe since it may not work properly), it may be more useful to find a recipe that is specifically formulated for sugar substitutes. Thank you!
can I bake this in mini bundt forms and if I do for how long
How many would it make and do I need to adjust the temperature
Hi Susan, yield and bake time will depend on the exact size of your mini Bundt pans. Keep a close eye on them and use a toothpick to test for doneness.
Cake came out great and spice and flavour were lovely! Mine had a bit of a baking soda aftertaste (bitter, salty). At first I thought there might be a few unmixed pockets but it seems present in every bite. Has anyone else had this issue? It wasn’t as noticeable with whipped cream so it might not be noticeable with the icing, but I didn’t ice mine. Curious if someone else has had this issue because I measure very carefully and have never had this issue before. All other recipes I have tried from this page have been fantastic
The aftertaste usually means your baking soda is getting old – we recommended getting fresh baking soda for your next bake!
Thanks for the reply! Unfortunately I actually opened a fresh box for this recipe so I don’t think that’s likely. Reading about it more my best guess is the absence of an acidic ingredient in the batter means that the soda didn’t fully bake off and left the taste behind? 2 tsp seems like slightly more than other cakes I have made too, though the rise was very nice, it’s such a plush cake I would recommend not serving this without an icing (salted caramel would cover it nicely) if you are sensitive to flavours since it unfortunately turned me and my family off the cake when served plain as a snack. I won’t make this cake again as a result, but the pumpkin sour cream bundt looks amazing so we will try that next
The brown sugar and pumpkin are the acidic ingredients here. If you ever want to try this recipe again, you can reduce to 1 tsp baking soda and add 2 teaspoons baking powder. That should be enough to lift the heavy cake.
This was delicious! I did try an experiment and halved the recipe due to the size and having a small family. It was done in 32 minutes, and turned out perfectly. Since it was gone in about 3 days I guess halving the recipe wasn’t necessary. 🙂
This recipe came out so good! But I was wondering how to store these after they are already iced?
Hi Kandin! See the last step in the recipe. Cover leftover cake tightly and store at room temperature for a couple days and/or in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.
Wow! Another winning recipe from your site! Made this last week and it is moist and flavorful. I used the maple glaze from your Pumpkin Scones recipe and it was just the right amount to top this cake. Delicious!
This is easy and delicious and everyone loves it! I frosted it with cream cheese frosting, and piped it on, like Nothing Bundt Cakes Bakery.
I was so proud of it!
Is it possible to substitute flour with GF flour?
Hi Pamela, we haven’t tested it ourselves, but a few readers have reported success doing so. Let us know if you try it!
Is it really 2 hours cooling the cake in the pan after baking before removing? This seems like a long time. Just wanted to be sure.
Hi Denise, we have had success with inverting the cake and getting it to release from the pan after 2 hours, but you can certainly try inverting it earlier, and finish cooling the cake on the cooling rack.
Can’t wait to try this recipe! I love the beautiful mugs!!
This cake was amazing. Moist texture with crunchy exterior. I added the streusel layer discussed in the post, but didn’t have cardamom so just used cinnamon and a little pumpkin pie spice. I added chopped pecans to the strudel and reserved a little of it to sprinkle on top. Instead of maple icing, I made your cream cheese frosting, but with 1/3 less powdered sugar so that it was a little thinner. My guests ate every bite! Thank you!
FABULOUS! I probably make 8 bundts per month and have tried a gazillion recipes all over the net this pumpkin and sallys lemon berry are 2 of my favorites! Even if someone isn’t found of pumpkin they will still like this! Its subtle and not overwhelming! I did an orange glaze on mine but I have used the carmel which is also fabulous I was just lazy today!
I just wanted to say that I’m a home-based caterer and baker. I’ve been baking for decades. And when I have an idea of making something and don’t want to start from “recipe scratch” I always look to see if you’ve already created it and you never disappoint! Keep doing what you’re doing and know that I love it all!
Thank you so much for making and trusting our recipes, Mel!
This is such a simple, easy to follow, can’t really mess up recipe! I have made this a few times and get rave reviews! I am a cottage baker so I can’t use the glaze since it’s against my states cottage laws, but I don’t feel the came is missing anything without it.
I have a dumb question. Can I add sour cream to this, and should I make any changes if I do (like removing an egg)? Thanks!
Hi Lauren, we haven’t tested a version of this with sour cream—it would take some experimenting in order to ensure results. We recommend sticking with the recipe as is!
Did not work for me
Best pumpkin cake ever. I used a cream cheese/caramel frosting and pecans in the cake vs the chocolate chips
Can I use bread flour for this recipe? Thx
Hi Donna, for best results, we recommend sticking with all-purpose flour here.
Hi! I’m so excited to try this recipe! I was wondering if I could use the cream cheese filling from your chocolate Bundt cake as a topping for this cake?
The filling from our chocolate Bundt cake has an egg, so it’s best that it’s baked inside of the cake. For topping, we’d recommend cream cheese frosting instead.
I made this cake for my son’s birthday last night – although not in the bendy pan – and it got rave reviews from the whole family! Great texture and flavor (sweet but not too sweet). Super easy to make. I will definitely be making this again soon! Thank you!
This recipe turned out great! The spices come through nicely, good texture, moist. Making it a second time now
This recipe has become a huge family favorite! I add pecans to it and make the maple glaze with pecans mixed in. We’re having a snow storm this weekend and I’m definitely making it again!
Holy cow this is soooooo good! Second time making in 2 weeks! Drizzled a maple syrup pecan glaze on it, hubby loves it! This is the perfect Bundt cake recipe!!! Thank you so much for sharing it with us!
Do you think this recipe is sturdy enough to stack 2 bundts together to make a pumpkin shape? I’m excited for try this for my sons birthday!
Hi All, thanks so much for this amazing recipe. It was a huge hit. If I wanted to make it as a layer cake instead, would I need to change anything? Thank you!
Hi Penny, we’re so glad to hear that! For a layer cake, we’d recommend using this pumpkin cake batter instead. See recipe Notes there for directions on making as a 2-layer cake.
Delicious! Used home made pumpkin puree.
I can’t wait to make this with the salted caramel glaze. My questions are do I glaze it at serving time as to not have it run off or is it just for drizzling on each slice? Also if it’s just a drizzle, would I use a cream cheese or maple glaze?
Hi Debbie! You can drizzle the glaze however you like. See the section in the post above titled “Pumpkin Bundt Cake Toppings” for options!
This recipe is so good! I’ve made it twice, and it’s such a crowd pleaser. My husband recently bought me an ENORMOUS Bundt pan for making huge cakes, and I want to adapt this recipe for the pan. I’m sure I’ll have to bake it longer, but should I also reduce the heat? Thanks!
Hi Katy! We imagine the temperature should be the same, but it may take a bit of trial and error. We’re so glad this is a favorite for you!
I love your recipes. I purchased ginger paste recently and am wondering if I can use it in this recipe and if so, how to sub it for ginger spice. I live well spiced cakes and am looking for the perfect one.
Hi Deb, We haven’t tested this recipe with ginger paste so I’m unsure of the amount you would need. If you wish to try it just keep in mind that ground ginger is more potent than the paste.
Where I live I can’t find all spice, what can I use instead?
Hi Gio, you can omit it and increase the other spices to make up for it. Or, if you have pumpkin pie spice available, you can use that instead. See recipe Notes for more details.
Delicious cake! I bought a Bundt pan just to make this and I am so glad I did and ditched the loaf pans. My cake cooked perfectly! Moist and full of flavor. I made your maple icing and it went so well. Next time I want to try cream cheese frosting. Big hit with the family. The cake barely lasted two days.
I have only ever used home-cooked pumpkin puree and I remove much of the liquid through a sieve first to get that very thick canned-like consistency. I can’t imagine how the canned version could have any more flavour than that. Is there something added in the processing? By the way, I puree skin and all so it is very orange! I suspect canned is the same. I will be trying this recipe soon, thanks!
My second perfect recipe from Sally. Thank you! I followed the recipe exactly. This one is easy too. I just put some Cool Whip on top and perfection! The hubby loves it too!