If you love anything pumpkin spiced, you're gonna love this spiced kabocha loaf cake! Made with fresh kabocha and seasoned with cinnamon and ginger, it's the perfect autumn treat. Enjoy it straight out of the oven or toasted and topped with butter and honey, delicious!
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Kabocha (Japanese Pumpkin)
What is Kabocha?
Kabocha is a type of Japanese winter squash. It tastes kind of like a cross between a pumpkin and a sweet potato. Some people compare it to a butternut squash.
In Japan, we use kabocha for many different kinds of recipes, it's a common ingredient for both sweet and savory dishes. Any recipe where you might use butternut squash or pumpkin puree, I'm sure you can use delicious kabocha!
The skin is a dark green colour while the flesh is a deep orange. In fact, the skin is also edible after it's cooked and it's full of nutrients. Kabocha is usually grown during the summer and harvested in autumn.
Kabocha Recipes
I mentioned before that kabocha can be used in sweet or savory recipes, here are a few example dishes:
Savory
- Kabocha korokke (croquette)
- Simmered kabocha
- Kabocha soup
- Kabocha salad (similar to potato salad)
Sweet
- Kabocha purin
- Kabocha mont blanc
- Kabocha baked cheesecake
- Kabocha tart / pie
How to prepare kabocha squash
Scoop & Peel
My first step for preparing the kabocha, is to scoop out the seeds and pulp from the centre. You don't need to be too exact and you can save the seeds and toast them if you don't want to throw them away.
Next is removing the skin. Although kabocha's skin is edible when cooked, we don't use the skin in sweets. We want the texture to be smooth after all!
Although the skin is quite thick, because of the round shape I like to peel it with a potato peeler. I've also tried peeling it with a regular knife but I find I waste quite a lot of the flesh when I do that.
Peel it until there's no more green left on the kabocha.
Cut
Kabocha is pretty firm so make sure to use a large, sharp knife to cut it. And be careful!
Microwave
While many people roast pumpkin to make it soft (and by all means you can!) that takes a lot of time and I wanted to speed up the recipe. I like to soften the kabocha up in the microwave and make a puree using the following steps:
- Cut the kabocha up small and place it in a microwavable bowl. (Small pieces microwave faster.)
- Add ½ tbsp of water.
- Cover the bowl in plastic wrap.
- Microwave for 4 minutes at 600W.
I've never needed to microwave it longer than this, but pierce it with a fork and if it's not soft enough, microwave again in 20-30 second intervals until it's soft enough to mash. This is especially important if you cut the pieces big or are using more kabocha than stated in the recipe.
Making a puree
My final step is mashing up the microwaved kabocha until no more lumps remain. I use a potato masher for this!
A food processor will make it even smoother, but I like to save on the washing up as much as possible.
Kabocha Pumpkin Bread
Although kabocha pumpkin bread is easy to make, I have a few tips I want to share with you.
Don't Overbake
I usually bake my kabocha loaf at 160°C (320°F) for 45 minutes and then keep piercing it with a toothpick every few minutes after that. To me, there's nothing worse than a dry loaf cake!
The toothpick doesn't need to come out perfectly clean, moist crumbs means it's perfectly cooked.
Adjust the Pumpkin Flavour to your taste
The reason I don't give a specific amount of kabocha on this recipe, is because it's customizable depending on how strong you want the pumpkin flavour to be!
I've tried adding between 100g - 300g and I found that I personally like to add 175g of kabocha. For me, the flavour is subtle but pumpkin-y enough. However I know many people love a stronger pumpkin flavour, so you can add up to 225g.
Please note that adding more pumpkin will make it more moist, so it might take a little longer to cook.
Fresh Kabocha VS. Pumpkin Puree
While pumpkin bread (and pumpkin pie) are usually made with pumpkin puree, did you know that most pumpkin puree is actually made from butternut squash?
That's one of the reasons why Japanese kabocha works so well for recipes that call for pumpkin puree. It has a lot of similarities to butternut squash.
If you can't find kabocha in your country, it's fine to use pumpkin puree for this recipe. If you're using the canned variety, I'd recommend using half a 15oz can (425g) OR if you want to use the whole can, you can double the recipe.
Toppings
Whenever I make loaf cakes or muffins, I like to add a sprinkling of a sugar we call "zarame" (ザラメ). It's a brown sugar that comes in large crystals. They don't melt very well, so the top of the loaf becomes crunchy, it's so good! You can use demerara sugar to create a similar effect.
It's also nice to decorate it with green pumpkin seeds (pepitas) for extra colour and texture.
Pan Size
This recipe makes enough batter for one small loaf tin. My loaf tin is 18x8x6cm (7x3x2.3inches) which fits about 2 cups (500ml) worth of loaf mixture.
Originally, I recommended increasing the recipe if you are using a standard American loaf pan (9x5) but actually, after some feedback from one of our valuable readers, it turns out there is no need to increase it. The loaf rises a lot in the oven, so it's actually enough batter even for pans larger than the one I used.
Just be aware that the baking time might change depending on the size of your pan. (Deeper will take longer, wider will bake quicker.)
Storing
I recommend eating a few warm slices straight from the oven to fully appreciate the freshly made kabocha pumpkin bread... but if you don't finish the loaf, you can store it in the following ways:
- 2 days - Room temperature in an air tight container
- 1 week - In the fridge in an air tight container
- 3 months - In the freezer in an air tight container (defrost at room temperature.)
I seriously love this loaf straight out the oven, it's also great toasted and then topped with a bit of butter and honey. Delicious!
Watch our video for how to make Kabocha Pumpkin Bread
Step by step recipe
Spiced Kabocha Loaf Cake (pumpkin bread)
- Total Time: 1 hour 10 minutes
- Yield: 1 loaf 1x
Description
How to make delicious Spiced Kabocha Loaf Cake (pumpkin bread). Makes 1 loaf (Using a 7"x3" loaf pan)
Ingredients
- 170g - 240g kabocha squash (approx 225g-320g before peeling/scooping) OR ½ 425g (15oz) canned pumpkin puree
- ½ tbsp water
- 135g light brown sugar
- 1 egg
- 140g plain flour
- ½ tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp cinnamon
- ½ tsp ground ginger
- 1 pinch salt
- 70g unsalted butter (melted)
- 1 tsp zarame/demerara sugar (optional)
- Green pumpkin seeds (optional)
Instructions
Making Kabocha Puree
- Cut the kabocha squash into small pieces and place them in a microwavable bowl.
- Sprinkle the kabocha with ½ tbsp water, cover the bowl with plastic wrap.
- Microwave the kabocha for 4 minutes at 600W.
- Remove the bowl from the microwave and peel back the plastic wrap, be careful of the steam.
- Pierce a larger piece with a fork to check it's soft enough. If it's not, return to the microwave and heat at 20-30 seconds intervals until soft.
- Using a potato masher, mash the kabocha until it becomes a smooth paste.
- Leave to cool. (It should be cool to the touch before use.)
Making the Kabocha Loaf
- Preheat the oven to 160°C (320°F) and line a loaf tin with baking paper.
- Sift 140g flour into a large bowl and add ½ tsp baking soda, ½ tsp cinnamon, ½ tsp ground ginger and a pinch of salt. Mix well.
- In a separate bowl, add 135g light brown sugar and 1 egg and whisk until the sugar is dissolved.
- Add the mashed kabocha to the bowl and mix well.
- Fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients with a spatula.
- Pour the melted butter into the batter and mix until all the ingredients are well combined.
- Pour the batter into the loaf tin and sprinkle with zarame/demerara sugar and pumpkin seeds (optional).
- Place in the oven on the middle shelf and bake for 45 minutes.
- Check the loaf with a toothpick, if it comes out clean it's done. If it needs longer, put it back in the oven in 3-5 minute intervals and keep checking until the toothpick comes out clean. (A few moist crumbs means it's done. If the toothpick has any wet batter it needs more time.)
- Leave to cool for 10 minutes and remove it from the loaf tin.
- Cut into slices and enjoy!
Notes
Keep in an air tight container at room temperature for 2 days OR the fridge for up to one week.
Freeze for up to 3 months and defrost at room temperature before serving.
Perfect for toasting.
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 50 minutes
- Category: Sweets
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: Japanese / American
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Dee Mal
I love cooking Japanese food and found myself with too much kabocha on hand, so I just had to try this. I was hesitant about the amount of sugar, but the loaf turned out just sweet enough and perfectly complemented the spices!
Notes / Tips:
- I only had a 9x5 loaf pan (I believe the standard for Americans like me), and the recipe says to quadruple the ingredients for that pan size. The original ingredient quantity works just fine for this pan (though it did cook about 10 minutes longer, as expected). I actually don't think I could have put more than 2-3 cups of batter, considering how much the loaf grew!
- since I quadrupled the recipe, I used the rest of the batter to make equally delicious muffins and got about 24 of them, in 2 standard-sized muffin pans. I upped the temp to 350F for the muffins and they were perfectly cooked at 20 minutes.
- To make it a bit healthier, I substituted half the butter with applesauce and it saved me a ton of calories, and still came out perfectly moist! My favorite health hack for baking 😉
- if you do quadruple the recipe, keep in mind that it's a bit harder to soften the squash in the microwave and will need significantly more time!
So in total, I quadrupled the recipe and used about 2 cups of batter for the loaf (the normal recipe quantity) and the rest of the 3x batter for the muffins. Everything came out so delicious and I'll definitely make this again!
★★★★★
Yuto Omura
Hi Dee,
Thank you for trying out my recipe, I'm so happy you enjoyed it!
Also thank you so much for the feedback, pans in Japan are usually smaller and when I follow American recipes I end up with too much batter, I did some research on the pan size and how to convert it, but I must have overcompensated this time! I'll update the post, your comment has been very valuable!
I also love your idea of making muffins and using apple sauce, I'll try that next time!