Brown Butter Pumpkin Cake with Honey-Cinnamon Frosting (grain free & refined sugar free)

Do you know that I love to bake? After my miscarriage, I found so much solace in the baking realm. Not everyone does, but there is always that one thing in which our souls were meant to do. It’s where our abilities & creativity collide. Tsh from Simple Mom was one of the Keynote Speakers at Relevant. She quoted Eric Liddell:

God made me fast. And when I run, I feel his pleasure.

I’ve always loved this quote. His words give recognition that we do not need to categorize sacredness. We are created by a creative God & each of us has a form of creativity within us that emerges. My mother in law would most likely call herself as “non-creative,” but she is skilled at cleaning. Like amazing skills turning trash into treasure. When she finds that tattered pack & play & restores it anew, she finds pleasure.

God made me with an impeccable sense of taste. And when I bake, I feel his pleasure. Not only that, but I feel the pleasure of those taking that first bite & satisfaction is voiced without words. My grain & sugar free brown butter pumpkin cake does just that. Where do you feel God’s pleasure?

Brown Butter Pumpkin Cake with Honey-Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting (printable recipe)

I made a gluten & sugar filled brown butter pumpkin cake last year prior to eating without them. This year I wanted to recreate the recipe by taking out the grains & refined sugars by using blanched almond flour & honey. My friends who don’t eat this way were singing praises.

Cake Ingredients:

½ cup unsalted butter, grass-fed, more for pans

Coconut flour for dusting pans

12 oz (3 cups) blanched almond flour

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground ginger

3/4 tsp ground nutmeg

3/4 tsp sea salt

1/4 tsp ground cloves

½ cup honey

3 large eggs, room temperature

1 1/2 cups pumpkin puree, (how to roast & puree pumpkin)

Honey-Cinnamon Frosting:

¼ cup unsalted grass-fed butter

8 oz cream cheese, room temperature

½ cup honey

2 tsp ground cinnamon

Directions:

Make the Cake: Position a rack in the middle of the oven. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour (with coconut flour) the bottom & sides of two 9-inch round cake pans. Melt the butter in a 1 quart heavy bottomed pan, stirring occasionally until the butter turns a nutty golden-brown (around 4-6 minutes) and when it smells nutty. The browned butter will have three parts to it. The scum on the top (sounds good), the golden brown clarified butter/ghee, & the burnt milk solids at the bottom. Scrap off the scum & discard. Pour the golden brown ghee/clarified butter into a measuring cup, while trying to keep the browned bits at the bottom out of the cup. Set aside & allow it to cool.

In a large bowl, add all of your dry ingredients and whisk them together (almond flour, spices, salt, & baking soda). In a medium bowl, combine honey, eggs, & pumpkin puree & whisk thoroughly to combine. Add the browned butter to the wet ingredients to incorporate all the way. With a rubber spatula, stir in the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until thoroughly combined & fully incorporated. Divide the batter equally between the two pans.

Bake the cakes for about 30 minutes (again make use of those olfactory sensors during baking as I baked my cakes for 28 minutes, because the cake smelled done), or when a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let the cakes cool 10 minutes in the pan. When using almond flour to make a cake, you will need to use a butter knife to run it around the outside of the cake; as well as, gently using the knife to lift up the bottom edges, to ensure it doesn’t stick when turning it out of the pan. Turn it onto a cooling rack to cool completely.

Make the Frosting: Take your room temperature butter & cream cheese & beat them in an electric mixer on medium-high speed (that would be a 7 on my Kitchen Aid). Add your honey & cinnamon to the mixture. A pinch of salt is lovely to add. Taste to see if you need more honey then written.

Assembling: Get a large cake plate and place one cooled cake top side down. Spread about 1/2 -2/3 cup of frosting on the cake. Take your other cake and place it top side down. Frost the top and sides with remaining frosting. Top the cake with chopped pecans. I used pecans to hide imperfections at the base of the cake (gotta love it). I kept mine in a cake dome platter for a day & then transferred to the fridge, due to the frosting.

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