Pumpkin Roll Cake

This Pumpkin Roll Cake is an easy recipe 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 cake roll 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 this classic pumpkin roll recipe 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 with the dry ingredients, combine all-purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, ground cinnamon, ground ginger, ground allspice, and ground cloves in a large mixing bowl:

I like to use individual spices here, but you can get away with substituting pumpkin pie spice, if that’s all you have.

In a separate large bowl, start the wet ingredients by combining large eggs, granulated sugar, and pumpkin puree.

Grab a whisk and mix the ingredients well.

It should look smooth and consistent, like this:

Add the flour mixture to the pumpkin mixture, 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 baking sheet:

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 (aka powdered 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 or swiss rolls, this gives the cake “muscle memory” and makes it more likely to hold the roll shape and less likely to crack later on.

Finally, drape the whole cake with a tea towel or other clean kitchen towel.

While you let the cake cool, grab a medium bowl and make the cream cheese filling using an electric mixer on high speed. It’s made with room temperature cream cheese and butter, confectioner’s sugar, and vanilla extract:

Spread the cream cheese mixture evenly over the unrolled 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:

Long live pumpkin season!

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

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