Pumpkin Roll

This Pumpkin Roll Cake is an easy and beautiful dessert to make in the fall. It’s a pumpkin spice cake rolled with a cream cheese buttercream filling, that’s very resistant to cracking, with a moist and tender crumb. It only takes 30 minutes to make and stores well too!

Roll cakes were often in the fridge during my childhood, so they have a special nostalgia for me. My mom would buy them from the store, and they always looked so elaborate and fancy, but they’re actually quite simple to make yourself.

This pumpkin roll cake is adapted from a recipe that’s fairly old and well-loved around the country, from the back of a Libby’s pumpkin puree can. I’ve tweaked it ever so slightly over the years that I’ve made it, but it’s still easy to pull off, with a flavorful and moist crumb.

Because the cake is a very thin layer of batter on a sheet pan, it bakes very quickly. I like doing a classic cream cheese frosting in the center, since it goes so well with the spiced pumpkin flavor, but you could fill it with any sort of frosting or filling that you enjoy, so long as it’s relatively sturdy.

Step by Step Overview:

To start, combine all-purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, ground cinnamon, ground ginger, ground allspice, and ground cloves in a large mixing bowl:

In a separate bowl, combine eggs, granulated sugar, and pumpkin puree.

Grab a whisk and mix the ingredients well.

It should look smooth and consistent, like this:

Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, and stir until no flour streaks remain, and you have a smooth batter:

Spread the pumpkin roll cake batter into a large rectangle on a silicone mat or parchment lined half sheet tray:

A half sheet pan is about 18×13,” so you want your rectangle to be just an inch or two short of that on all sides, about 15×10.” Better yet, if you have one, you can use a jelly roll pan, which is already sized to 15×10.” But most people don’t have these in the kitchen, myself included, and you can get by fine without one for this recipe.

Bake the tray for about 13 minutes, until there are no longer any shiny unbaked sections of batter, and the cake is springy when touched:

While the cake is still warm, dust the top with confectioner’s sugar, then place a piece of parchment on top of the cake.

Flip it over, then peel the silicone mat off and roll the cake in the parchment paper:

Just like with any roll cake, this gives the cake “muscle memory” and makes it more likely to hold the roll shape and less likely to crack later on.

While that cools, make the cream cheese filling. It’s made with room temperature cream cheese and butter, confectioner’s sugar, and vanilla extract:

Spread the filling evenly over the cake, leaving room at the edges (because as you roll, the filling will spread a little bit):

Roll the pumpkin roll cake back up, tightly:

Trim the ends off the pumpkin roll, then cut into thick slices, about 1 to 2 inches thick:

The full recipe is below, and there’s also a full video below the recipe card if you’d like more guidance. Pumpkin Muffins are another one of my favorite fall baked goods, as well as Homemade Pumpkin Butter. Enjoy!

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