Today I thought I would answer the question most of you are not asking, which is: ‘What did I do with that leftover roasted pumpkin?’

Well, my husband—thinking it was butternut squash—ate some for his lunch and I used the rest to make this amazing pumpkin almond cake. It smells like pumpkin pie in the best way but it’s not. It is CAKE. I think this qualifies as healthy 1) because it’s homemade, 2) because it has pumpkin, almonds and whole wheat flour in it and 3) because it smells too good to be bad. Yes of course you can use pumpkin puree from a can. But that stuff kind of turns me off. We roast squash all the time in America, particularly acorn squash. So why not pumpkin?

Makes enough for a normal 2-layer cake or around 26 mini cakes

Dry ingredients
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
3/4 cup finely ground almonds or almond meal
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg, grated
4 cloves, ground in a pestle and mortar**

Wet ingredients
1 stick butter, very soft
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup of pureed pumpkin*
2 eggs
2 tsp fresh grated ginger**
3/4 cup almond milk

* Roast the pumpkin till soft. The peel should come right off. Puree in a food processor or in a blender. Add a little water if you need to.
** You can use pre-ground cloves and ground ginger (one tsp only of each)

1. Whisk all the dry ingredients together
2. Whisk all the wet ingredients together (except almond milk), starting with creaming the butter and sugar and then mixing in the rest.
3. Add the flour and almond milk next, alternating as you incorporate each into the cake batter.
4. If using a mini cupcake tray, butter and flour each hole. If using a cake tin, butter and flour it or line it with baking parchment.
5. Cook the mini cakes for about 8-10 minutes in middle of the oven on 350. A full-size cake will take longer–about 40 minutes.

I made one tray of mini cakes for the kids and used the rest of the batter for one layer cake for us old people.