Makes 1 cake in a 24 x 13 cm loaf tin

Preheat the oven to 160°C fan.

In a bowl, mix the sugars and the butter. Add the eggs, one at a time, and beat between additions. Add the pumpkin purée and mix.

In a separate bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, salt and pumpkin spice. Briefly fold through the pumpkin batter, making sure not to overbeat the batter.

Grease a 24x13cm loaf tin, fill with the batter and bake in the preheated oven for 1 hour and 5 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean.

Leave the cake to cool in its tin for 15 minutes, then turn the cake onto a wire rack and leave to cool completely.

Once cool, prepare the frosting: Put the butter and the cassonnade into a bowl and mix until pale. Add the maple syrup and the cream cheese and mix for about 3 minutes until the sugar crystals have melted and you’re left with a smooth frosting.

Spread the frosting all over the top of the cake, then refrigerate for at least two hours to set the icing.

This cake keeps in the fridge for 4 days.

*To make pumpkin purée: buy a small Hokkaido pumpkin, cut open and remove the seeds. Peel and cut into 2cm cubes.
• If you have a steam oven, put the pumpkin cubes into a perforated tray and steam at 100°C for 20 minutes. Leave to cool before whizzing to a purée in a food processor. Only put in the cake batter once completely cooled.
• If you don’t have a steam oven, put the pumpkin cubes into a large saucepan of boiling water and boil until the pumpkin chunks are soft. Drain and leave to cool before whizzing to a purée in a food processor. Only put in the cake batter once completely cooled.
• If you feel lazy, you can buy canned pumpkin purée. In Luxembourg this might be quite tricky to find though, but ‘Home from Home’ usually has it.

**If you don’t have pumpkin spice at hand, you can use the following instead: 1 ¼ tsp cinnamon, 1 ¼ tsp ginger, ¼ tsp allspice, a pinch of nutmeg and a pinch of powdered cloves.