This vegan chocolate pumpkin cake is a party in your mouth. It's also vegan, gluten-free and oil-free. The pumpkin flavor is hidden but the moisture it contributes is not. The next time you bake a chocolate cake, add a little veggie purée, and you won't be sorry.
Chocolate Pumpkin Cake
Chocolate cake is magical, isn't it? Why not make it more magical by adding a hidden veggie? Here, I decided to add pumpkin purée to see what it would do for the texture.
As it turns out, pumpkin is a wondrous ingredient to put into chocolate cake. Like beets or sweet potato or even butternut squash purée , it adds incredible moisture and texture. And nutrition.
I now add a veggie purée to many of my baked recipes - including another recipe, a fudgy cake, where I add sweet potato purée.
How Healthy Is Pumpkin In a Cake?
Adding pumpkin to baked goods is nutritionally useful because pumpkin is loaded with vitamins and minerals. And it is really high in the antioxidant beta-carotene.
This antioxidant is one of the plant carotenoids converted to Vitamin A in the body.
Vitamin A is essential for healthy, glowing skin, strong eyesight, and our immune system.
Pumpkin also adds Vitamin A, anti-oxidants, both of which support skin and eyesight, and it is packed with immunity-boosting nutrients.
The nutritional facts are for the cake without frosting.
Here, I frosted the cake with my basic chocolate frosting here. I have a few recipes on my blog, just put "frosting" into my search at the top of the page. If you want to keep the sugar down in your frosting, try my frosting that has less sugar naturally with the aid of arrowroot.
How to Make This Chocolate Pumpkin Cake?
You make this cake just as you would any cake. The only difference is mix in the pumpkin puree with the wet ingredients. I used a bpa-free organic brand but you can probably use fresh pumpkin if you want to cook it up and puree it.
In this recipe, I added spices that coincide with pumpkin but those are optional if you want to leave them out. A way to deepen the chocolate flavor instead is to add a few tablespoons of cold coffee! You won't taste the coffee I promise.
Another tip from a blog follower. She made this cake as a bundt cake, with the only difference, baking it for 60 minutes.
Finally, if you want to create thin layers, the way I did, use a cake leveler to divide the two layers in half. For my cake, one half broke up so we ate it and I used only three for this cake!
Do you need a frosting recipe? I recommend this one or my Fudge Frosting, which uses a healthier red palm shortening to increase nutrition. Hey, even frosting can have some nutrition.
I hope you try my recipe. If you do, please comment below on how it turned out.
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Chocolate Pumpkin Cake
Ingredients
Put in Measuring Cup
- 1 cup dairy free milk I used almond milk
- 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
Put in Large Bowl
- ⅓ cup pumpkin puree (I used organic bpa-free canned pumpkin)
- 1 cup organic cane sugar
- ¼ cup aquafaba (liquid from a can of unsalted chickpeas) or unsweetened apple sauce
- 2 tbsp cold coffee
- 2 tsp vanilla
Put in Small Bowl
- 1 ½ cup all-purpose flour or gluten-free baking flour
- ½ cup cocoa powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp baking powder (Be sure to use a brand that is aluminum-free or else your cake could taste like metal)
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tbsp pumpkin pie spice (or just ½ tsp each of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg)
- ½ tsp salt
Useful Equipment
Instructions
Prep
- Preheat oven to 350F.
- Rub butter or coconut oil on inside of 2 (6-inch) cake round pans.
- Dust with cocoa powder, shake out the excess and set aside.
- Mix the milk and ACV in the measuring cup, and let set for a few minutes to activate.
Make the Cake
- Mix up wet ingredients in the large bowl first. Stir until combined.
- Mix up the dry ingredients in the small bowl next.
- Add dry ingredients to the bowl of wet ingredients.Use a hand mixer and combine between each addition, but only just combine. You don't want to over mix.
- Divide batter evenly between your cake pans.
- Bake 35 minutes, or until a test comes out clean. Cool for 30 minutes before removing from pan.
- To cut layers, use the leveler or serrated bread knife. Let the layers cool completely, then slip each into two layers using the leveler that I linked to in ingredients. Frost carefully because the layers have crumbly surfaces.
Kaye
What about the frosting? Please?
Dee Dine
Sure, Kay. I used a variety of this one. I think I added a bit more chocolate.