Today, a sweet recipe: soft cake with pumpkin and chocolate.
What I am proposing today is the recipe for a soft and very moist cake, these characteristics are due to the fact that it is a batter without yeast and with very little flour and also has a short cooking time to leave the inside nice and moist and slightly sticky. When you eat it, you will have the sensation that it melts in your mouth, a true delight for the palate, just like the wholemeal cake with aquafaba, the egg-free apple cake or the brownies. The soft cake with pumpkin and chocolate is excellent cold, just dusted with some powdered sugar, or accompanied by a scoop of vanilla ice cream, a nice dollop of whipped cream, or why not, with hot chocolate which is just perfect in this season.
For this dessert, I used a butternut squash which has a firm flesh but is not overly sweet, and some dark chocolate. This time I used a puree made from boiled pumpkin, but you can also bake it in the oven as when we prepare pumpkin gnocchi or a pumpkin shortcrust pastry. Finally, let’s remember that for some varieties of pumpkin, nothing is wasted—for example, the delica, which is very good for this preparation, can also be eaten with its skin. While the seeds of all varieties can be made crispy in an air fryer.
Let’s see together, step by step, how to make this recipe.
- Difficulty: Easy
- Cost: Cheap
- Preparation time: 20 Minutes
- Portions: 1 pan of 9.5 inches
- Cooking methods: Oven
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: Autumn, Winter
Ingredients for the Pumpkin Cake
Below you will find the links to the ingredients used
- 1 cup cups pumpkin (puree (about 4 cups raw pumpkin))
- 6 tbsps tbsps vegetable oil
- 3/4 cup cups sugar
- 3 eggs (medium)
- 1/2 cup cups all-purpose flour
- 3 oz oz 70% dark chocolate
Tools
Below you will find the links to some of the tools used to make the recipe
- 1 Scale
- 1 Stand Mixer
- 1 Bowl
- 1 Cutting Board
- 1 Knife
- 1 Cake Tin
- 1 Spatula
Let’s Start!
To prepare this cake, we need pumpkin puree, which can be prepared by baking or boiling the pumpkin. If baking, cut it in half, remove the inedible parts, and wrap it in foil, then bake at 390°F for 30 minutes. If boiling, peel it, remove the internal fibers, cut it into slices and then dice, and boil in water for 10 minutes. Drain on a cloth to dry well. Whether baked or boiled, blend the pumpkin flesh with an immersion blender.
In the bowl of the stand mixer, put the egg yolks with half of the sugar and whisk until you get a foamy mixture. As it keeps mixing, add the vegetable oil slowly.
When the mixture is nice and foamy, add the sifted flour and continue mixing with the whisk, then add the pumpkin puree and let it mix a little longer.
In another bowl, whip the egg whites with the remaining sugar until they are very stiff, to the point that when you flip the bowl upside down, they don’t fall out.
At this point, we can combine the two mixtures obtained from the yolks and the egg whites. Add the latter to the yolk, flour, and pumpkin batter, and gently stir with a spatula using upward motions.
On a cutting board, coarsely chop the chocolate and add it to the mixture obtained by mixing all the other ingredients, stirring gently to avoid deflating the batter.
Grease and flour a mold, then pour in the soft cake batter with pumpkin and chocolate. Bake in a preheated oven (preferably static) at a temperature of 340°F for 30 to 35 minutes because it needs to remain moist inside.
Remove from the oven and let cool before removing it from the mold. In the meantime, take a photo and post it on social media tagging me ( una riccia che pasticcia) and let me know if you’ll enjoy it with powdered sugar, ice cream, or if you’ve already prepared a nice hot chocolate.
Una Riccia Recommends
This soft cake with pumpkin and chocolate keeps well for two or three days on a tray covered with a towel.
FAQ (Questions and Answers)
Can I use a different type of chocolate for the pumpkin cake?
Sure, I used 70% dark chocolate, but I’ve also tried it with white chocolate, and I must say it’s delicious.
What variety of pumpkin is recommended for this cake?
I used a butternut squash with firm and not overly sweet flesh, but a delica or mantovana pumpkin works just as well.
