Pumpkin Choc Chip Cake

One of my passions is USA and with it comes the passion for all that is american, hence Halloween!!

Every year this time of the year all I think about is pumpkin pie, but I have never ventured to actually bake a cake with pumpkin in it.

This week I decided the time had come for me to bake a pumpkin cake…a dairy free cake of course, to please my sis delicate tummy, and possibly with chocolate in it, for the joy of my friend Viv, whose broken heart needs some “sweet” healing. So after searching the internet and reading numerous recipes, I found perfection!!

Pumpkin Choc Chip Cake (adapted from “Taste of Home”)

Ingredients

3/4 cup Nutter

1-1/2 cup Granulated sugar

1/2 cup Brown sugar

2 Medium eggs

1 tsp Vanilla extract

2-1/2 cups Plain flour

1 tsp Baking powder

1 tsp Baking soda

1 tsp Ground cinnamon

425g Pumpkin puree (or butternut squash)

1 handful Dark chocolate chips

3 tsp Dark chocolate powder (or more to your taste)

3/4 cup Chopped pecans

Method

I made my pumpkin puree from fresh and I used a medium size butternut squash instead of pumpkin. Peel the pumpkin and cut it in cubes. Put the pumpkin cubes in a stew pot, cover with water (up to about 1 finger above the pumpkin cubes), bring the water to boil. Let boil until the pumpkin is soft, drain the water and mash the pumpkin meat with a potato masher.

In a large bowl, mix butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Add the eggs and beat well after you add each egg. Mix in the vanilla extract. Add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and the pumpkin puree. Finally fold in the dark chocolate chips.

Divide the batter in two bowls and stir the dark chocolate into one of the bowls.

Grease a fluted tube pan (about 10-in.).

Sprinkle 1/2 cup pecans, spoon the pumpkin batter over pecans, top with chocolate batter and sprinkle with remaining pecans.

Bake at 190°C Fan for 40-45 minutes, depending on the oven.

You can use the toothpick test to check whether it’s cooked. Simply insert a toothpick in the center of the cake and if it comes out clean, then the cake is ready!!

Cool it for 15 minutes before removing from pan to a plate.