Pumpkin Chocolate Cake

For the past few years I’ve been trying to replicate a delicious and beautiful pumpkin chocolate cake with two distinct layers of pumpkin and chocolate. Unfortunately every time I ended up with one of the two layers being too dry. Recently I was able to track down the original recipe thanks to the person who introduced me to it in the first place. The big thing missing in my attempts in replicating the recipe was that I only mixed pumpkin puree in the pumpkin batter. This recipe made things simpler by mixing the puree in a big batch of batter and then adding cacao powder to only half the batter. The addition of cacao powder in the chocolate batter was balanced by the moisture of the pumpkin puree, and the result was two deliciously moist cakes fused together! With just a couple modifications to the recipe, I baked this cake for Thanksgiving dinner with friends.

Ingredients:

¾ cup butter at room temperature (1.5 sticks)

1¼ cup white granulated sugar

½ cup dark brown sugar

2 eggs

2½ cups all purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 can (15 oz) pumpkin puree (not pie filling)

⅓ cup unsweetened cocoa powder

¼ - ½ cup semisweet chocolate chips (optional)

Heat oven to 325 F. Grease two 6” pans and dust with flour (or line with parchment paper).  

 

In a large bowl, cream butter, sugars until light and fluffy. Add eggs and continue to beat.

In a separate bowl combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and cinnamon. Add the dry mixture to the creamed mixture alternately with pumpkin.

Divide the batter in half. Mix in cocoa powder in half the batter and beat until just combined. Mix in chocolate chips in the chocolate batter.

Add half of the chocolate batter to each pan. Top each one with half of the pumpkin batter. Smoothen out the top and bake for ~60 minutes, checking for doneness after ~45 minutes. If using a larger pan, the baking time will be reduced as the cake height will be lower  and it will bake faster.

Let the cake cool down for 15-20 minutes before removing from the pan. Sift a mixture of cocoa and powdered sugar on top. I made two little maple leaf cutouts and put them on the cake before adding the cocoa and sugar. Then lifted them up and piped an outline with melted chocolate. Alternately, top with dark chocolate ganache (Click here for ganache recipe).
 

~Gayatri

Note: To get a flat cake top instead of a dome, follow these instructions.

Find us on Facebook:

Delicious dessert for the cold days - pumpkin chocolate cake!http://cooksofcakeandkindness.blogspot.com/2015/12/pumpkin-chocolate-cake.html
Posted by The Cooks of Cake and Kindness on Monday, December 14, 2015

Chocolate collar cake

It’s been over a week since we promised a chocolate cake recipe, so I think it’s about time to post one :P

Karla and I were at Borders one day during finals week, attempting to study for exams but mostly g-chatting with each other, even though we were sitting at the same table. During one of our breaks, I was browsing through a cookbook and saw a cake so pretty that I immediately wanted to go home and bake it. I settled for buying the book, and we managed to get a decent amount of studying done ;-)

Karla and I and our friend Carrie got together once exams were over and everyone was back from visiting family and, after a delicious zucchini lasagna dinner (we’ll post later!), we gave this cake a shot. The recipe is from the book Crazy for Chocolate, published by Bay Books:

Ingredients:

Chocolate cake:

125g (4 oz) butter

1 1/2 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

2 eggs

1/2 cup strawberry/ mixed berry jam

1 1/3 cup plain flour

1 1/3 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 cup cocoa powder (can use melted dark chocolate)

3/4 cup buttermilk

Chocolate buttercream icing:

1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar

2 egg whites

~6 oz butter/margarine

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

4 oz melted and cooled dark chocolate

Chocolate collar:

~ 1 oz. White chocolate melts, melted

~ 2.5 oz. Semi sweet chocolate melts, melted

1. Preheat oven to 350° F (180° C). Grease an 8 inch square (or 9 inch round) cake tin with butter.


2. Beat butter, sugar and vanilla essence until light and creamy. Add eggs and beat well. Add jam and beat until smooth.


3. Add sifted flour, baking soda and cocoa alternately with buttermilk and mix well.


4. Pour mixture into prepared tin and bake for 45 minutes or until skewer comes out clean when inserted in the center.


5. Cool in pan for 5 minutes and transfer to wire rack for cooling completely.


6. Chocolate buttercream icing (recipe source: Off the Shelf by Donna Hay ): Beat together the egg whites and sugar until soft peaks form. Add the butter, a little at a time, and keep beating. Stir in vanilla essence and melted dark chocolate. (Do not refrigerate icing before spreading over cake.) Spread sides and top of cake evenly with the icing.


7. Chocolate collar: Measure the height and length of sides of the cake and cut four rectangular strips out of baking paper according to those dimensions. If you don’t have baking paper (we didn’t!!), you can use any thick paper cut to the required dimensions and wrapped in plastic wrap.


8. Drop dots of melted white chocolate randomly (or in any pattern you want) on a strip. Allow to set, and then spread a layer of melted semi sweet chocolate over the entire strip. Quickly stick the paper, chocolate-side in, on the side of the cake. Repeat with the remaining strips. Allow to set.


9. Carefully peel the paper away. Refrigerate the cake until ready to serve.


10. Optional: if the collar doesn’t evenly match up with the top of the cake (or even if it does!), grate some solid white chocolate and sprinkle the shavings on top of the cake.

Our kitchen was kind of a mess when we were done, but it was well worth the final product!

~Gayatri