Pumpkin roll is a classic and beautiful fall dessert that always impresses. This homemade pumpkin roll recipe yields a moist spiced pumpkin cake with a thick layer of tightly packed cream cheese frosting inside. We’re demystifying the cake roll-making process with helpful instructions and a video tutorial, plus you can review all of my helpful tips to ensure your pumpkin roll is a success.
I originally published this recipe in 2017 and have since added new photos and a few more success tips.
Like pumpkin pie, pumpkin roll is a classic fall dessert. But unlike its pie counterpart, its swirled presentation is particularly show stopping and impressive. While this rolled cake isn’t a difficult recipe, making jelly roll cakes can seem intimidating. After all, cake rolls look complicated. A rolled-up cake…what?
One reader, Lari, commented: “This is such a great recipe! I’ve made it a few times. I’m not a pumpkin flavor fan at all (except pie), but this is wonderful. I brought it on a few occasions to holiday dinners—both Thanksgiving and Christmas—and always well received. Don’t be intimidated by the thought of rolling the cake! ★★★★★”
Tell Me About This Pumpkin Roll
- Flavor: This pumpkin roll is full of spiced pumpkin flavor that pairs beautifully with the tangy cream cheese frosting inside.
- Texture: Enjoy a soft and moist cake, plus cool, creamy, silky cream cheese frosting in every single bite. What a pair!
- Ease: Did you know that pumpkin roll is actually rolled… twice? The first time you roll the cake, it must be warm to establish the shape. You can see more on that in “Roll the Cake While It’s Warm” below. Cool the cake in this rolled-up shape, and then unroll, fill with frosting, and then roll back up. If you’ve made my chocolate cake roll before, you’re familiar with the process.
- Time: The batter is fairly quick to prepare, and since this cake is so thin, it has a much shorter bake time than regular pumpkin cake. The shaped roll does need to cool down for a few hours before unrolling, frosting, and rolling back up, so be sure to leave enough time.
A Few Key Ingredients in Pumpkin Roll
- Flour: Because of the thick and wet batter, we use sturdy all-purpose flour instead of cake flour for the base.
- Cinnamon + Pumpkin Pie Spice: These are pumpkin’s favorite spices and you can use homemade pumpkin pie spice here! But instead of prepared pumpkin pie spice, you can use 1/4 teaspoon each of ground nutmeg, ground ginger, ground cloves, and ground allspice. Sometimes I use closer to 1 and 1/4 teaspoons of pumpkin pie spice.
- Pumpkin: We can’t have pumpkin roll without pumpkin! If desired, you can use fresh pumpkin puree, but I really do recommend canned pumpkin puree if it’s available to you. I usually use Libby’s brand in this recipe. You’ll have some pumpkin puree left over in the can, and you can use it up in one of these recipes to make with leftover pumpkin puree.
**You’ll notice this pumpkin batter is made without butter or oil. Why? We’re keeping this cake light and spongy so it can easily roll up.
Here’s How You Bake & Shape Pumpkin Roll
The full printable recipe is below, but let’s walk through it so you understand each step before you get started.
- Make the pumpkin cake batter. Spread it into a lined 10×15-inch jelly roll pan, which is the only size pan that works for this recipe. Good news: a quality pan is inexpensive, and you’ll use it again if you bake pumpkin bars.
- Bake. You know it’s done when the cake springs back when you poke it with a finger.
- Prepare the kitchen towel or parchment paper. This is the most important step! While the cake is baking, lay a thin kitchen towel or parchment paper flat on the counter. Sprinkle it with confectioners’ sugar. Once the cake comes out of the oven, immediately invert it onto the towel/parchment. Peel the parchment paper off the warm cake, then, starting with the narrow end, gently roll the cake up with the towel/parchment on the bottom. The cake will be warm, since it just came out of the oven.
- Let the cake cool. Allow the cake to cool completely rolled up in the towel/parchment. I usually stick mine in the refrigerator for about 2 hours to speed it up.
Pumpkin Roll Cake Must Be Shaped While Warm
Let me explain why it’s important to roll the cake with a thin towel or parchment paper while it’s warm.
- We roll the pumpkin roll cake in a towel or piece of parchment to prevent it from sticking to itself.
- Rolling the cake while it’s warm allows it to cool in the rolled shape. That means no cracks, rips, or tears when you roll it up again with the filling inside.
Like many beginner bakers, you can master a pumpkin roll with this recipe. Then you can go on to confidently make other cake rolls, such as this epic vertical cake or even a yule log (Bûche De Noël).
Cream Cheese Frosting
As the rolled-up cake cools, prepare the cream cheese frosting. The recipe is a simple scaled-down version of my regular cream cheese frosting recipe. Now let’s fill the cake:
- Unroll the cooled cake. Take your time with this step. Gently unroll and flatten the cake out, then spread a thick layer of frosting evenly on top, leaving about a 1/2-inch border around the cake. Carefully and tightly roll the cake back up, without the towel/parchment this time. Some frosting may spill out the sides, and that’s ok!
- Refrigerate. Loosely cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 20 minutes before slicing and serving. Refrigerating the cake for this short amount of time ensures a neater slice and tastier bite.
See Your Pumpkin Rolls:
So many of you have tried this recipe. Feel free to email or share your recipe photos on social media @sallysbakeblog.
More Perfect Pumpkin Recipes
- Pumpkin Muffins & Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls
- Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies & Pumpkin Snickerdoodles
- Pumpkin Bread
- Brown Butter Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies & Pumpkin Oatmeal Cream Pies
- Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting
- Pumpkin Bundt Cake
- Pumpkin Cheesecake Pie
- Pumpkin Hand Pies
- Recipes to Make With Leftover Pumpkin Puree
For even more inspiration, here are my 30+ best pumpkin dessert recipes.
Print
Delicious Homemade Pumpkin Roll
- Prep Time: 25 minutes
- Cook Time: 18 minutes
- Total Time: 3 hours, 45 minutes
- Yield: 10-12 slices
- Category: Cake
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
How to make the BEST pumpkin roll! It’s moist, pumpkin spiced, easy, and filled with cream cheese frosting.
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup (94g) all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled)
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 and 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon store-bought or homemade pumpkin pie spice*
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 3 large eggs, at room temperature
- 2/3 cup (150g) canned pumpkin puree
- 1/2 cup (100g) packed light or dark brown sugar
- 1/2 cup (100g) granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- for rolling: 3/4 cup (90g) confectioners’ sugar
Cream Cheese Frosting
- 6 ounces (170g) full-fat brick cream cheese, softened to room temperature
- 1/4 cup (4 Tbsp; 56g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- 1 and 1/2 cups (180g) confectioners’ sugar
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Instructions
- Read the instructions through before beginning. Make sure you are prepared for step 7 immediately when that cake comes out!
- Preheat oven to 350°F (177°C). Spray a 10×15-inch baking pan with nonstick spray or grease with butter, so the parchment paper sticks. Then line it with parchment paper so the cake seamlessly releases in step 5. Spray or grease the parchment paper too. We want an extremely nonstick surface for this cake roll.
- Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, and salt together in a large bowl. Set aside.
- In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs, pumpkin, brown sugar, granulated sugar, and vanilla together until combined. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and whisk until combined.
- Spread batter evenly into prepared pan. Give the pan a shake to make sure the batter is level and reaches the corners. Bake for 17–18 minutes, or until the cake springs back when you poke it with a finger.
- Meanwhile, lay a thin kitchen towel flat on the counter. Sprinkle with 3/4 cup confectioners’ sugar. Once the cake comes out of the oven, immediately invert it onto the towel. Peel off the parchment paper, then, starting with the narrow end, begin rolling the cake up with the towel. Do this slowly and gently. The cake will be warm, as it just came out of the oven.
- Allow the cake to cool completely while rolled up in the towel. I stick mine in the refrigerator for about 2 hours to speed it up.
- Remove the cake roll from the refrigerator and allow to sit on the counter for a few minutes to warm back up a bit as you prepare the frosting.
- Make the frosting: In a large bowl using a handheld or stand mixer fitted with a paddle or whisk attachment, beat the cream cheese for 1 minute on high speed until completely smooth and creamy. Beat in the butter until combined. Add the confectioners’ sugar and vanilla and beat on medium-high speed until combined and creamy.
- Gently and slowly unroll the cake. Flatten it out and spread frosting evenly on top, leaving about a 1/2-inch border around the cake. Gently and slowly roll the cake back up, without the towel this time. Make sure you’re rolling it tightly. Some frosting may spill out the sides—that’s ok!
- Loosely cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 20 minutes before slicing and serving. Dust with more confectioners’ sugar, if desired.
Notes
- Make Ahead & Freezing Instructions: You can prepare the cake through step 7 and chill the rolled up cake/towel in the refrigerator for up to 1 day before continuing with step 8. Prepared cake roll, with frosting, freezes well for up to 2–3 months. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator before slicing and serving.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): 10×15-inch Baking Pan | Parchment Paper | Whisk | Glass Mixing Bowls | Rubber Spatula | Towel | Electric Mixer (Handheld or Stand)
- Pumpkin Pie Spice: You can find pumpkin pie spice in the baking aisle of most grocery stores or make your own homemade pumpkin pie spice. If you don’t have either and want to use individual spices, use 1/4 teaspoon each: ground ginger, ground nutmeg, ground cloves, and ground allspice. This is in addition to the 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of cinnamon—you will still add that.
- Adapted from Libby’s.
Reader Comments and Reviews
Hey Sally, love so many of your recipes! Can’t comment on the 1-Layer Carrot Cake page but its it possible to bake the carrot cake on a sheet pan and roll it for a similar preparation/filling as it is here? Any adjustments I should make?
Hi Abby! It would require some testing to adjust that recipe. We do not have a carrot cake roll recipe at this time, though we’d love to try one in the future!
This dessert was fantastic! My husband and I both found it to be delicious! Your instructions were so easy to follow and I really appreciated the addition of a video showing how it all comes together! This recipe led me to make 2 others and received rave reviews from family and friends. Thank you for sharing.
Hi Sally! I would like to make mini rolls using quarter sheet pans. For how long should I bake it?
Hi Naz, a 10×15-inch jelly roll pan is the only size pan that works for this recipe. We haven’t successfully scaled it for other size pans at this time.
I am not sure where my problem was. The cake turned out great but the frosting was liquidy and way too sweet. I even added a little more cream cheese. I weighed everything in grams instead of using cups. Also, where I live there isn’t a super hard cream cheese available. I’m guessing the combination of using a slightly less firm cream cheese as well as weighing the sugar in grams might have been the problem but curious to hear from the expert.
Hi Jess! We would guess your cream cheese would be the culprit. You really need block-style cream cheese for this filling recipe. We do test our recipes by both volume and weight measurements.
Hi, great childhood recipe was jelly rolls, and lemon rolls. Any chance you could work on them?
Hi Peggy, a lemon roll would be delicious! In the mean time, you can use this recipe for our strawberries and cream cake roll and change the filling if you wish.
This was an amazing recipe!
My family loved it.
I’ve never made any kind of “roll” cake before, so I was a bit anxious to make this for Thanksgiving. The recipe was easy to follow & came out perfect! I didn’t have pumpkin pie spie, so I used a mixture of 1.5 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp each of nutmeg & cardamom and a pinch of black pepper. I also mixed in 1/2 cup of mini semi-sweet chocolate chips into tge batter before baking. Tge cake was very moist & not overly sweet thanks to the cream cheese frosting.
I’ve made pumpkin rolls for Thanksgiving for decades using a recipe a friend gave me. This year I used your recipe (including the homemade pumpkin pie spice). It was super easy to turn the cake out onto the towel and to roll it up. I had no cream cheese filling spilling out either. It was by far my best effort. I, like others, sprinkled some chopped walnuts on top of the cake before baking because my friend’s recipe called for them, and my husband and I love nuts. I did not chill the cake in the refrigerator before unrolling and filling because I was afraid it would be too cold and crack. Thank you for this delicious recipe (and all your recipes). I’m going to use some of the leftover pumpkin to make your pumpkin spice pinwheel cookies.
Glad you enjoyed this, Donna!
This is my wife’s all time favorite! Perfect every time. We never go wrong with Sally’s recipes, they are the best! Thanks so much for sharing all your hard work with the world!
Hi Sally! If I am wanting to make this one day early, so for tomorrow, can I frost it and just cover it so it is just ready for tomorrow, because freezing won’t work since it is needed the next day – it says in your notes I can just roll it up and frost the next day, but is that because it will get too soggy if it is frosted the day before and then sits in the fridge until the next day? Will the rolled up, unfrosted cake in the fridge dry out over night?
Hi H! You can roll and frost the cake one days ahead of time and store, covered, at room temperature overnight.
Mine turned out wet. I usually use Libby’s recipe and never had a problem.
I’d rather not buy a new pan, so could I double the recipe and make 2 rolls in my 12 x 17 jelly roll pan? How deep should the batter be when you pour it into the pan? I don’t mind making 2 rolls — it certainly won’t go to waste at my house!
Hi Maureen, a half sheet pan that’s 12×17 inches in size holds 12 cups of batter, while a jelly roll pan that’s 10×15 inches holds 10 cups of batter, so you would need to increase the amounts of everything proportionately.
I don’t care for cream cheese in frosting. Do you think your vanilla buttercream frosting would work instead?
Thank you.
Hi Jennifer! You can use vanilla buttercream, or even marshmallow creme or Swiss meringue would work. Enjoy!
Awesome! Thank you!
Can I use salted butter in the cream cheese filling?
Hi Joyce, that should be fine!
Great recipe, very delicious! I baked 5-rolls and I would like to know how to freeze the roll without the cream cheese filling? Should I remove the cheesecloth? I appreciate it.
Hi Nicky, it’s best to freeze the roll with the filling inside. I worry the roll will crack and break after thawing, and when you try to unroll to fill it. But let me know if you try it.
I followed your recipe for pumpkin roll and it came out delicious. I followed the recipe to the letter. I don’t understand why my pumpkin roll is so sticky when slicing. Any tips I can do to elevate thus issue. Thank you in advance.
Patricia
Hi Patricia! Did you refrigerate for 20 minutes before slicing? (See the last step) That will help firm it up to slice.
Delicious and easy recipe..wondering if you have ever drained the pumpkin before using? There is a lot of liquid and it varies from can to can. Thanks! Love your recipes and explicit instructions.
Hi Kathy! We don’t blot any of the moisture from the pumpkin before using in this recipe—we want that extra moisture for a supremely moist cake. However, of your pumpkin puree seems especially wet, feel free to drain off a bit before using.
While I had no trouble rolling up this pumpkin roll, the final result turned out a bit too sweet, extra soft, and slightly too moist. I’d definitely make it again, though, with a bit less sugar on the towel.
This recipe is super easy to follow. It’s not a super sweet batter (which I appreciate) and the pumpkin spice is well balanced as is the cream cheese frosting. The instructions make for an easy roll up and assemble. I haven’t made a roll in years so to come back and make a roll as easy is this was delightful. No cracking at all. Perfect! Thank you, Sally, for making this pumpkin roll a very good experience.
I have made this recipe many times. I sprinkle finely chopped pecans on batter prior to baking and flavor is much better.
Decided my safest person to go to for a jelly roll recipe was Sally. And mine turned out! I rolled up the unfilled cake with parchment paper then wrapped the log in a towel. Then let it chill overnight before I layered a cream cheese frosting.
Made this recipe exactly as shown. I was worried when I poured the batter into the pan as I felt I didn’t have enough batter and I had difficulty spreading it throughout the pan without it becoming too thin. However it all worked out in the end and it rolled together really well. Everyone loved it! Would make again.
I was disappointed. The cake was a bit dry (perhaps I cooked it too long ) and there was not a lot of pumpkin flavor. I followed the recipe exactly. It was easy to roll, the cream cheese filling was good and it looked great.
Do the mixing bowls have to be glass?
Hi Debora, they don’t have to be!
The recipe is amazing and I’m now a confident pumpkin roll baker. Made it a couple of times last year and again this weekend for my son’s birthday. Thank you Sally!
Going to make this in Denver, next week. Do I need to alter recipe due to high altitude?
Hi Becky, I wish we could help, but our team has no experience baking at high altitude. Some readers have found this chart helpful though: https://www.kingarthurflour.com/learn/high-altitude-baking.html
What a disaster, I left in frig overnight then frosted next day it was wet and cracked when I rolled it. Didn’t roll tight enough. I made an earlier one different recipe. Went to store to buy one lovely lady talked me into you’re website so I tried again
Can you freeze the pumpkin roll to serve at a later date?
Hi Anna, yes. See Freezing Instructions.
Perfect for Fall. Freezing the pumpkin roll allows for much easier and cleaner cutting!
I saved this recipe and am planning to try it for our (Canadian) Thanksgiving soon. Somehow I’ve been baking since I was a kid and have yet to try a rolled cake! I recently bought a 12×17″ pan as that is the size I found in a local store. Would this recipe work in that pan? I know it would be thinner but not sure if that would cause any issues.
Hi Debbie, a half sheet pan that’s 12×17 inches in size holds 12 cups of batter, while a jelly roll pan that’s 10×15 inches holds 10 cups of batter, so you would need to increase the amounts of everything proportionately. Maybe easier to just buy (or borrow, if possible!) a jelly roll pan to make this pumpkin roll!
I personally find pumpkin disgusting, but my family seems to love it.
They DEVOURED this pumpkin roll. Then I made another for my fiancés family and they love it as well.
It is pretty straightforward. I haven’t had luck in keeping it from cracking when I put it in the fridge (even when allowing it to come to room temp as suggested in the recipe), so I usually just make sure I have time to make it and add the cream cheese frosting (filling) in the same day. Probably user error, though.
Use a regular cookie sheet if you have one. I bought mine at CT, and it’s exactly 10 x15 in.
I love this recipe! I now have a couple in my freezer. Easy and delicious