Pumpkin Spice Latte Cake

This Pumpkin Spice Latte Cake is the perfect dessert for the fall season. In a time when pumpkin spice can be found in pretty much everything – and not all of it tasty – this cake is just the thing to restore your faith in pumpkin spice!

We’re big fans of pumpkin spice when it’s used correctly. We emphasize “used correctly” because, and let us be clear, not everything needs to have pumpkin spice in it! Pumpkin spice lattes? They’re tasty. Pumpkin spice in breads and desserts? Yes! Pumpkin spice in cereal and storebought donuts? Eh… that’s a big fat no.

See, pumpkin spice is like disco. It was really great until people decided to market it. Now, it’s overused, put into everything, and no one stops to think about how it might actually taste. We’re sharing this delicious pumpkin spice latte cake to help restore your faith in this venerable spice combination if the onslaught of pumpkin spice everything has turned you off to it.

Wow, just wow, is all I can say about this delicious cake.  It’s three different cakes meshed together with a fabulous buttercream frosting, and topped off with a chocolate Ganache for a beautiful finish.  This cake makes such a stunning presentation when served, your guests are sure be wowed!  This one will definitely become a favorite.

Pumpkin Spice Latte Cake

Fall is in full effect with this delicious cake recipe. It’s filled with three different kinds of spiced cake, a rich frosting, and all the fall feels.

This cake is everything we love about what real pumpkin spice and fall is all about. It features three layers of rich, moist cake, buttercream frosting, and chocolate ganache. Vanilla cinnamon cake, pumpkin spice cake, and chocolate espresso cake are frosted with buttercream frosting, and then the entire thing is drizzled with chocolate ganache as a finishing touch.

We love, love layer cakes and this one is perfect for a company dinner. It always impresses and the flavors are what Fall is all about!

Ingredients

When you look at this ingredient list, you’re going to be intimidated, but don’t be! Many of them are repeats. Each cake layer might be flavored differently, but the base cake recipe is the same. When you get down to it, it doesn’t take nearly as many ingredients as you might think if you just casually glance at the recipe. Take a look for yourself.

For the Vanilla Cinnamon Cake

• Flour
• Baking powder
• Salt
• Butter – softened
• Sugar
• Eggs
• Vanilla
• Heavy Cream
• Cinnamon

For the Pumpkin Spice Cake

• Flour
• Sugar
• Baking Soda
• Baking Powder
• Cinnamon
• Pumpkin pie spice
• Nutmeg
• Eggs
• Vegetable oil
• Pumpkin puree

For the Chocolate Espresso Cake

• Flour – sifted
• Baking powder
• Baking soda
• Salt
• Butter – softened
• Sugar
• Eggs
• Espresso powder
• Chocolate milk – heated

For the Buttercream Frosting

• Powdered sugar
• Vegetable shortening
• Butter – softened
• Milk

For the Chocolate Ganache

• Chocolate almond bark
• Heavy cream

Whew. By now, you’re thinking, “That’s a lot of ingredients!” But go back and look again. You’ll see that a lot of them are repeats. In fact, if you look at the ingredients for this pumpkin spice latte cake, you’ll see that it really doesn’t take many ingredients at all to make it.

Making the Pumpkin Spice Latte Cake

Again, just looking at the cake, you might think that this is a super complicated recipe, but really, it’s just making three cakes, stacking them, and frosting them. No biggie, right?

Right!

Making this pumpkin spice latte cake is actually very easy. All three cakes use a very basic recipe. You don’t need a lot of baking experience to do this. It’s really a simple recipe when you break it all down.

You’ll find the complete recipe along with amounts and baking times in the recipe card below, but in the meantime, look at the overview below, and you’ll quickly see that it’s actually a simple recipe.

For the Cakes

• Make the cakes one at a time, preferably using a stand mixer. But a regular mixer will do just fine.
• Start each cake by creaming butter and sugar.
• Add remaining wet ingredients and blend well.
• Combine dry ingredients in a separate bowl.
• Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, mixing well.
• Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

For the Frosting

• Using a stand mixer, blend butter and vegetable shortening togetehr until smooth and creamy.
• Alternate adding powdered sugar and heavy cream a litte at a time until a smooth, fluffy frosting is created.

For the Ganache

• Add the chocolate almond bark and heavy cream to a heavy saucepan and heat until a smooth ganache is created.

Putting the Cake Together

• Trim the top of each cake so that they’re even with the top of the pan in which they were cooked.
• Turn out the chocolate cake onto a cake plate or cake stand.
• Add a generous amount of buttercream frosting to the top of the cake.
• Add the pumpkin cake on top of the frosting layer and add another layer of frosting on top of the pumpkin cake.
• Finally, place the vanilla cake on top and frost the entire cake.

• Refrigerate.
• Make the ganache while the frosted cake is chilling.
• Allow the ganache to cool for a few minutes until it begins to thicken a little.
• Remove the cake from the refrigerator and gently pour the ganache over the top of the cake, allowing it to drip down the sides.
• Chill until ready to serve.

See? This recipe isn’t difficult at all. It’s all mostly just making cake and frosting it, and we’ve all done that! Don’t worry, you’ll be rocking this cake with no problems, we promise.

Tips

Making the individual parts of this cake isn’t difficult at all. Putting it together isn’t all that complicated either. That being said, there are a few tips that can help you make a pumpkin spice latte cake that absolutely blows everyone out of the water. These tips are really easy, but they make a big difference.

Fully Softened Butter

Always make sure your butter is fully softened when creaming it with anything. Fully softened butter incorporates incredibly well, giving you that light, fluffy texture that’s perfect in cookies, cakes, and frostings. If you don’t fully soften the butter, you’ll end up with a lumpy mixture that has chunks of butter in it. That affects both the flavor and the texture of your dish.

Room Temperature Eggs

Room temperature eggs are less viscous than cold eggs, so they incorporate into your baked goods more easily. This is important because fully incorporated eggs help your baked goods cook up better than eggs that aren’t quite as mixed in as they could be.

Cool Those Cakes

When frosting cakes, it is absolutely vital that you allow them to cool completely before even thinking about adding frosting to them. A cake that is even slightly warm will cause your frosting to begin to melt when it touches the cake, resulting in the frosting simply sliding off of the cake. Cool your cake completely to be sure your cake is frosted beautifully.

Adding Ganache to the Cake

When adding your ganache to the top of the pumpkin spice latte cake, be sure that you’ve chilled it thoroughly. Remember what we said about frosting and heat? Heat melts frosting. Your ganache is going to be warm, so the frosting needs to be cold. Cold frosting can stand up to the warmth of the ganache without becoming a mess.

Serving Pumpkin Spice Latte Cake

All you need is a plate and a glass of milk or a cup of coffee to serve this cake. That’s it. This is loaded with flavor, frosting, and ganache. You don’t need to add anything else to it.

This cake is perfect for any fall or winter get-together, potluck, or holiday event. It’s also a great special dessert for the family. As complicated as it looks, it’s relatively simple to make, which means you can make it whenever you want, even for just a family dessert!

Storing Pumpkin Spice Latte Cake

This cake will keep well in an air-tight cake container in the refrigerator for about seven days. It’s important that you refrigerate this cake as it has buttercream frosting. For longer storage, you can freeze this cake for up to three months.

To freeze the cake, allow it to chill in the refrigerator completely. Then place it in the freezer, unwrapped, until frozen. Once the cake is frozen, wrap it tightly in two layers of plastic wrap and then a final layer of aluminum foil. To thaw, simply place it in the refrigerator overnight.

If you have leftover batter for some reason.. you can also use the batter for pancakes, waffles, cupcakes, or cookies.  If you make cookies, you can frost them, place sprinkles on top, place them in individual bags, and send them home with your guests.

Pumpkin Spice Latte Cake – Believe in Pumpkin Spice Again!

With pumpkin spice in so many things these days – many of them dubious, at best – you might have become sour on this spice combo. We’re here to restore your faith in pumpkin spice with this pumpkin spice latte cake. Give this recipe a try, and you’ll fall back in love with pumpkin spice.

PIN IT!!

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