This healthy pumpkin cake recipe goes back a number of years on this recipe site. Using ingredients such as Greek yogurt, pumpkin, and whole wheat flour, it’s healthy baking at its finest! There is no white sugar or butter in this fall cake. We creatively blend a combination of coconut sugar, honey, and unsweetened apple sauce for unprocessed, natural sweetness. The result is a unique, moist, toasty-flavored, and mildly sweet cake bread.
Moist, delicious, low sugar Pumpkin Cake with vegan caramel drizzle!
In my earlier days of blogging and recipe writing, one of my creative outlets included taking healthy ingredients and re-creating favorite dishes and desserts. Here we use unique twists and clever substitutions for both refined white sugar and refined white flour.
Healthier ingredients for healthy pumpkin cake
- pumpkin puree
- Greek yogurt
- whole wheat flour
We use whole wheat pastry flour in this pumpkin bundt cake recipe. Whole wheat white flour may be substituted for whole wheat pastry flour although the resulting cake will be slightly a heavier, more dense bread-like cake.
Not only are Greek yogurt and unsweetened apple sauce good for you, these ingredients really moisten things up in this cake.
pumpkin puree and apple sauce are the secret ingredients that make this cake extra moist and flavorful
Along with pumpkins and pumpkin spice, apples are everywhere this time of year including on our side yard tree! If you are up for some chopping, Homemade Crockpot Applesauce takes this recipe up a notch. Typically we use store-bought, unsweetened apple sauce.
Why coconut sugar?
- less processed
- less of a glycemic spike for sugar sensitivities and pre-diabetics
- a fuller, toasty sweet flavor!
If you are new to using coconut sugar in baking, be prepared for a slightly different texture experience. Coconut sugar produces a caramel sauce that is not quite as smooth as using white or brown sugar but just as tasty with hints of savory or nutty notes. The aesthetic is also a bit different – coconut caramel sauce will be darker than a white sugar sauce made with butter. Using coconut sugar over white refined sugar makes this cake marginally healthier. It has ‘hints of healthy’ which is what we’re going for.
Over the last decade, there has been an influx of many different varieties of pumpkins on the market. My favorite ones include the flatter, princess pumpkin, or fairytale pumpkin variety.
our front porch fall decor
I like finding varying sizes and stacking the flatter white pumpkins on my doorstep for unique fall decor. Another fun thing to do with pumpkins is to make Succulent Pumpkins for fall table decor.
Healthy Pumpkin Cake is a cozy, moist, delicious cake. It’s easy to dress it up with some vanilla bean ice cream, pecan pieces, or chopped walnuts. Impress your guests with this moist, delicious fall cake. Then use the extra pumpkin puree and make Healthy Pumpkin Scones.
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Do you mean 3/4 tsp baking soda and 3/4 tsp baking powder ?Also under drizzle you wrote 1cup coconut sugar twice
Thank you for catching that – I corrected the recipe!
Just wondering I noticed the caramel recipe lists coconut sugar twice- should the second one be coconut oil?
Hi Jerry, thank you for catching that. I’ve corrected the recipe. Good luck!
I wanted to read the comments that went with the ratings that previous cooks gave so that I could perhaps adjust the recipe to meet my needs, but was not able access them. That would have been helpful.
Hi Valerie, what adjustments do you need to make? How can we help? If you are more specific maybe previous cooks will respond. Many thanks.