Step 1

Preheat oven to 325F and prep a loaf. I use an 8.5 x 4.5 cast iron loaf pan. To do so, coat the loaf pan with oil or butter and cut a piece of parchment paper to fit along the bottom and up the sides of the pan. So only the sides of the short portions will be showing. This gives you little parchment handles to grab the loaf out of the pan once it’s cooked and cooled. You get me? If not watch the video!

Step 2

*Tip: get an oven thermometer for this recipe so you can make sure your oven is actually the temp it says. If your oven is running hot the loaf will likely rise too quickly and balloon over the sides. If your oven is running low then you may be left with a dense and gummy crumb.

Step 3

Mixie mix flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon in a medium sized bowl. The addition of cinnamon really helps you see when everything is fully mixed. It’s so common to under-mix dry ingredients, so this will help you see truly how much you should be mixing! Set aside.

Step 4

Time to brown the butter. Add butter to a small pot set over medium heat. Whisk the butter occasionally to make sure no milk solids are sticking to the bottom. Depending on how high your heat actually is the time will vary. In all it should take approximately 5 minutes, but visual cues are what you should be paying attention to. The butter will start bubbling up vigorously as the water in the butter boils off. The bubbles will being to get smaller and smaller and bubbling noises will calm down. You want to pay close attention because once the bubbles turn to sort of a foamy film on top and the milk solids (teeny tiny specks of brown) are a light toasty color you NEED to remove it from the heat. The residual heat will continue to toast the milk solids so you want to err on the lower side of toasted when you remove it from the heat. Another cue is a super toasty, buttery smell. The toasted solids sort of look like brown vanilla bean seeds!

Step 5

To speed up the cooling I add the bowl to another bowl with ice cubes in it. That’ll just gently accelerate the cooling so you’re not waiting forever to continue with the recipe.

Step 6

In a large bowl combine pumpkin, eggs, yogurt, vanilla, brown sugar, and cooled brown butter. *If you can’t find bourbon vanilla just do 1 1/2 tsp vanilla and 1/2 tsp bourbon.* Mixie mix until fully smooth and combined.

Step 7

Add in 1/2 of the flour mixture and gently mix to combine. Add in the remaining 1/2 of the flour and once again gently mix. You want to ONLY mix until no dry spots remain. Make sure you’re scraping the bottom and sides of the bowl to ensure there are no lingering bits of flour left.

Step 8

Pour into your prepped loaf pan and smooth out the top.

Step 9

Bake on the middle rack for approximately 75-90 minutes. You want to go until a toothpick or cake tester comes out clean when poked into the thickest part of the loaf, but that could still mean the bottom is slightly under done. Another visual cue is to let the top of the loaf BEGIN to slightly brown. I’m not saying brown or crisp, but like hints of it starting to do so. You can also listen to the cake! You want gentle noises of fizz… as you bake more that’ll make more sense. Worst case the bottom has a teeny tiny line of underdone batter (like mine did in the video) and I assure you it is still so delicious.

Step 10

Allow the cake to cool in the loaf pan for 20 minutes.

Step 11

Then remove using the parchment handles and place it on a wire cooling rack and allow it to cool like this for another 20 minutes.

Step 12

Thennnn remove the parchment so the bottom of the loaf can properly cool and air out as well.

Step 13

Let the loaf FULLY cool (to the touch, approximately 1-2 hours) before topping it with your cream cheese frosting.

Step 14

While the cake is cooling make the cream cheese frosting. To do so whisk the cream cheese until smooth, then add powdered/confectioners sugar, vanilla, and a pinch of salt. Vigorously whisk to combine and try to incorporate some air into it.

Step 15

Spread cream cheese frosting on the top of the loaf and add pumpkin seeds for garnish.

Step 16

ENJOY!