Not only has autumn officially already begun, no – October is just around the corner. How did I seemingly miss all of July and September? The summer has most definitely left us this year and although it is rather nice and warm these days there is a brisk of fresh air and one gets chills when sitting in the shade. The trees are slowly but surely loosing their leaves, and heck, my mom has even been picking up chestnuts off the floor whilst going for her long walks. I will miss summer – oh, I surely will. But at the same time I love autumn so much. When the leaves are slowly turning into all sorts of autumn-y colors from yellow, to orange, red and brown. I finally have an awesome excuse again to drink hot chocolates in the evening and comforting food is so understandable to everyone. The bikini-body is now on hold again until next year! Ugh, I wish..!

No but seriously – autumn for me is the start of being more and more in my kitchen again. I love cooking and baking, but notice myself getting lazy and not doing much at all in the summer. In the end, it’s hot outside and a salad on the go is just about what everyone goes for. These past days I found a new recipe on 20min.ch which instantly caught my eyes! In order to be able to eat it myself, though, I had to make some adjustments to making it gluten- and lactose free. In addition, I left out just one more ingredient that I did not think it needed and added a hint of cinnamon instead. I took photos “just in case” the cake ended up good enough to share with you guys. Guess what – I. love. it. Seriously, one of the yummiest cakes I have eaten in a while. It is super soft, not dry at all, not too sweet and yet sweet enough to satisfy and cravings.

For those that understand German and you have no intolerances I can only recommend the linked website. Otherwise, here is the recipe and how I made it.

What you need
4 eggs; medium sized
1/2 pack baking soda
150g gluten free flour / I used buckwheat flour
200g grounded almonds
1 orange
250g marzipan
250g freshly grated pumpkin / I used butternut pumpkin
a hint of salt
175g brown sugar
125g butter at room temperature / I used lactose free butter

What to do
1) Whisk up the butter, add in 4 egg yolks (keep the egg whites for later), the salt, and sugar until a creamy blend is formed
2) add in the baking soda, grounded almonds, the juice from one orange, the grated pumpkin and marzipan (previously cut into small pieces)
3) mix everything well, until you have a nice dough
4) whisk up the egg whites until fully stiff and slowly add to the rest of the mixture – make sure to not mix everything to hard now
5) Add everything into a baking pan (make sure to coat it with coconut oil or lactose free butter, in case you do not have silicon pan) and place it into the pre-heated oven (180°C) on the lowest rack 
6) bake for 55-60 minutes until the top is nice and brown // note; I also made small mini-cakes, which only took around 20 minutes in the oven

Now you can
1) enjoy it immediately
2) keep it for the following days / well kept fresh in the fridge for several days
3) surprise your loved ones with a piece of freshly baked cake

I totally fell in love with this recipe – a big thank you to 20min.ch again here for the great inspiration – and will surely be doing it more often in the future. The cold weather is only slowly coming and it’s already screaming for hot comfort food! xo