Pumpkin Chocolate Cake

Now that both my kids are attending school, I find myself baking more, especially muffins and cakes - since they make great school snacks and afternoon tea. 

I've been trying out some new recipes in the last few weeks and this pumpkin chocolate cake recipe totally blew me off.  I never knew pumpkin cake could taste so good! I made it for several different occasions and no one could tell there was pumpkin in it.  My kids thought it was just chocolate cake, and totally walloped it. 

I also made a new discovery - that adding coconut oil can totally elevate the yummy ratings of a cake! Did you know that? Well, I didn't until now.  The coconut oil did several things - it makes the cake extra aromatic, gives extra moistness to the texture, and adds a subtle sweet backnote to the taste.  I'm totally converted now.  I used up my bottle of extra virgin coconut oil to make the pumpkin cakes (yes, expensive cakes they are!) but so worth it.

Ok, enough of raving about it.  Here's the recipe.


Pumpkin Chocolate Cake
Adapted from Gimmesomeoven
Makes 2 medium size loaves


Ingredients

Dry

• 1 3/4 c plain flour, sifted
• 3/4 c castor sugar
• 1/2 c brown sugar
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon powder
• 1/2 tbspn unsweetened cocoa powder

Wet

• 3/4 c pumpkin puree
• 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 1/2 c extra virgin coconut oil
• 1/3 c greek yogurt
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Handful of chocolate chips


Method

• Preheat the oven at 180C.  Line two baking pans with greaseproof paper.
• Prepare two bowls.  In one bowl, mix the dry ingredients together evenly, and in the other bowl, the wet ingredients.
• Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and fold briskly for about 10 strokes.  Do not overmix. 
• Pour the mixture equally into the two pans and sprinkle chocolate chips on top.  Bake for 20-22 minutes until a skewer comes out clean.

Note 1: Choose as ripe a pumpkin as possible.  Get your grocer to cut the pumpkin so you can see the flesh.  Select the one with the most orange flesh, don't get those with yellow flesh.  It's not necessary to get the expensive Australian butternut pumpkin.  The local ones are good enough.

When making the puree, blend the cooked pumpkin with some water until the texture is like kaya. 

Note 2: If you are making these as muffins, reduce the baking time to 10-12 minutes.  A whole cake would probably need up to 35 minutes.