I love having a big sheet cake to snack on. You can cut off a little bite in the morning with coffee, then even the edge after work before you start cooking dinner, then have a hunk after dinner…and I bet I’m missing plenty of other opportunities. I made this one when a friend was coming to stay with us for a few days. She’s super-athletic so I wanted something sweet but not over-the-top. Something that seemed wholesome and not too sugar-shock-y. This recipe from Food and Wine (one of my favorite recipe sources!) was perfect. We nibbled away at it and loved the mild pumpkin maple flavor. Btw, the recipe calls for spelt flour. I am not wholesome enough to have that in my pantry. But I did have some rye flour that worked out fine. I doubled the recipe below, which was created by Sarah Bolla, and it was just right for a nice big sheet-cake pan.

INGREDIENTS

1/2 cup spelt flour
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
7 ounces pecans (about 1 to 1/3 cups)
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
2 large eggs
2/3 cup dark brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons coconut oil, melted
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoons demerara sugar for sprinkling (I used turbinado sugar from Trader Joe’s)

STEPS

1. Preheat the oven to 325° and grease an 8-inch square cake pan or casserole dish.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the spelt flour, all-purpose flour, cinnamon, and salt and set aside.
3. In a small frying pan over medium-high heat, toast the pecans until fragrant, stirring occasionally, about 4 minutes. Transfer half of the nuts to a small food processor and pulse until a coarsely ground flour forms. Roughly chop the remaining pecans over a cutting board into small sized pieces. Add both the pecan meal and loosely chopped pieces to the bowl of dry ingredients.
4. In a large bowl, whisk together the pumpkin puree, eggs, brown sugar, maple syrup, coconut oil, and vanilla extract until very smooth.
5. Gently fold in the dry ingredients until incorporated. Using a spatula, scrape the batter into the prepared pan. Smooth out the surface of the cake batter with the spatula and sprinkle the demerara sugar evenly over the top.
6. Bake for 45 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. The top of the cake should be crispy from the scattered sugar coating. Let the cake cool for 15 minutes before slicing and serving.