Roasted Pumpkin Chiffon Cake with Rum Chantilly Frosting
This tender chiffon cake is made with roasted pumpkin purée and a light, airy rum and vanilla Chantilly cream. It's the best cake for fall birthdays and holidays.
- Updated on:
- Original post date: 10/23/2025
Testing This Pumpkin Cake and Rum Frosting
Testing Status: COMPLETE
A SEASONAL SWEETS SOCIAL MEDIA SERIES RECIPE.
With this cake, my main goal was to use an entire can of pumpkin. I really prefer not to use just a partial can or jar of something, if I can help it — especially something like pumpkin purée, which I only use a few times a year.
Test 1: I pulled from my other cake recipe ratios to draft a cake that could handle the hydration of an entire can of pumpkin. I used unroasted purée, 2 eggs, all-purpose flour, and buttermilk. The flavors were impeccable, but everything else fell flat, literally.
Test 2: I decided I would turn this into a chiffon cake to help with rise, so I used whipped egg whites and sugar to help life the cake. I also didn’t want to play around too much with the leavening agent, baking powder, since pumpkin isn’t very acidic and would definitely need the help of baking powder over, say, baking soda. The result was a tall cake that sunk at the bottom from being too heavy.
Test 3: I removed the buttermilk from the recipe to reduce the liquid content, but the cake was still too hydrated. The result was closer to pumpkin pie.
Test 4: I changed to cake flour and upped the amount by only 10 grams to see what happened. I didn’t like the gelatinized feeling that more flour gave it, and the cake was still too wet. At this point, I knew what needed to be done… — but because the flavor and texture were closer to what I was aiming for, I tried this cake test with a cream cheese frosting. It tasted very grocery-store, and the cream cheese overshadowed the pumpkin and pumpkin spice.
Test 5: Just like I do with my Pumpkin-Banana Snickerdoodles, I roasted the pumpkin and incorporated it into the cake with an extra egg, which I did to help with structure and add to compensate a bit for the lost moisture. A 452-gram can of pumpkin reduces to about 250 grams of roasted purée after 45 minutes in the oven. Unfortunately, I forgot to add the dry ingredients in this test, so the cake failed completely. It did, however, open my eyes to a future pumpkin pie or soufflé idea.
Test 6: This time, I made a roasted pumpkin chiffon cake that had great structure, using cake flour for light suspension, three eggs for integrity, and no added liquids like buttermilk. I absolutely loved the result of this one, but I didn’t want to sully it with that cream cheese frosting I tried in Test 4. Instead, the roasted pumpkin flavor demanded something lighter, like a Chantilly cream (sweetened vanilla whipped cream). My partner and I tried just a piece of the cake with canned whipped cream, and it was delicious, so I got started on creating a Chantilly with the right sweetness and flavor. I landed on a 4:1 ratio of cream to powdered sugar, as well as near-equal amounts of vanilla and dark rum. OMG delicious.
Test 7: Confirmation test. I assembled the full cake, baked another cake under the final set of instructions I devised and evaluated the finished product, which was delicious.
Recipe
Roasted Pumpkin Chiffon Cake with Rum Chantilly Frosting
Equipment
- Baking sheet
- Mixing bowls
- whisk
- Hand mixer or stand mixer
- Flour sifter
- Silicone spatula
- 8x2-inch cake pan
- Wire cooling rack
- Serrated knife or cake leveler
- Offset spatula
Ingredients
Roasted Pumpkin Chiffon Cake
- 170 grams cake flour 1½ cups + 1 scant teaspoon
- 6 grams baking powder 1¼ teaspoons
- 6 grams table salt 1 teaspoon
- 7 grams pumpkin spice 2½ teaspoons
- 150 grams eggs 3 large, room-temperature and separated
- 100 grams caster sugar*** ½ cup, for yolks
- 1 15-ounce can 100% pure pumpkin purée
- 120 milliliters neutral cooking oil ½ cup, I use canola
- 100 grams caster sugar*** ½ cup, for whites
Rum Chantilly Cream Frosting
- 480 milliliters heavy whipping cream 2 cups
- 12 grams vanilla paste 2 teaspoons, or 10 grams vanilla extract
- 10 grams dark rum 2 teaspoons
- 120 grams powdered sugar 1 cup
Instructions
Chiffon Cake
- Preheat the oven to 350°F with a rack in the center position. Line only the bottom of an 8x2-inch round cake pan with parchment paper, and set it aside. Do not spray or grease the pan.
- Spread all the pumpkin purée evenly on a baking sheet* and bake for 45 minutes. Immediately transfer the roasted purée* to a large mixing bowl and chill it for a few minutes until lukewarm or cooler.
- To a separate, small bowl, add the all-purpose flour, baking powder, table salt, and pumpkin spice. Whisk for about 30 seconds. Set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk the egg yolks, caster sugar*** (labeled: for yolks), roasted pumpkin purée, and cooking oil until combined. Set aside.
- Add the egg whites to a medium mixing bowl, and have the caster sugar (labeled: for whites) nearby. Use a hand-mixer or stand mixer to whip on medium-high speed (7 of 10 on my hand mixer). Do not mix at the highest speed. At 15 seconds, the egg whites should start to foam. Keep whipping while slowly incorporating the sugar into the foamy egg whites until stiff peaks.^ This can take 6 to 10 minutes, depending on your mixer.
- Sift the dry ingredient mixture into the pumpkin mixture and whisk until most of the flour is no longer visible. I like to use the same beaters I used on the meringue to whisk here.
- Scoop a silicone spatula-full of meringue into the pumpkin mixture and mix until completely combined. This prepares the batter for folding.^^ Then, gently fold a third of the meringue into the pumpkin batter until there are no more white streaks. Repeat with half of the remaining meringue, and then the remainder.
- Pour the batter into the cake pan lined at the bottom with parchment paper. Do not line the sides, and do not spray the pan. Use the silicone spatula or an offset spatula to smooth the top. Bake on the center rack for 55 minutes.
- Remove the cake from the oven and place it on a wire rack to cool. Once the pan is cool enough to hold in your hands, use an offset spatula or other narrow tool to release the sides of the cake. Turn the cake out of the pan and allow to cool completely.
- Once the cake is completely cool, place a large mixing bowl in the freezer^^^ and prepare the ingredients for the Chantilly frosting.
Chantilly Cream
- Once all ingredients are measured, remove the large mixing bowl from the freezer. Add the heavy cream, vanilla, rum, and powdered sugar, and whip until stiff peaks.
Decoration
- Use a cake leveler or serrated knife to split the cake into two even layers. I like to also remove the dome and snack on it to the side.
- Drop about a quarter of the Chantilly cream on the first layer and spread evenly with an offset spatula.
- If you kept the dome on, place the top layer dome-side-down onto the first layer of cream.
- Scrape the rest of the whipped cream from the bowl, directly onto the top of the cake. Use the offset spatula to carefully spread the cream out and around the rest of the cake.
- Serve the cake immediately or within the day.
