Merciful God, You are great in compassion and Your tenderness for us is without measure. We ask You to give us today our daily bread, and also provide for the needs of all of Your hungry children around the world. Through Christ Your Son and Our Lord. Amen.

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Chocolate Pumpkin Spice Cake

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The other day I had a hankerin' for some chocolate and also wanted to use the leftovers of a big can of pumpkin in the refrigerator. I was in the mood for a cake, so I went looking for a recipe. I had seen one at myrecipes.com, but it was
really loaded with butter, so I kept looking. I never really found what I wanted and so, I combined some recipes and came up with my own.

This is a moist, mildly spicy cake, with a rich chocolate flavor. It came out of the pan beautifully, so I just drizzled (o.k., maybe a little more than a drizzle) with a delicious chocolate icing that doubles as chocolate sauce for ice cream (save those leftovers!). This cake is yummy enough, and pretty enough, to serve company, but also homey enough to enjoy with family on a cool autumn night.




Chocolate Pumpkin Spice Cake


1/2 cup butter, softened
2 cups white sugar
2/3 cup applesauce
3 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup low-fat sour cream
2 cups canned pumpkin
2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 t. cinnamon
1/4 t. ground cloves
1/4 t. ground ginger
1/4 t. ground nutmeg
2 t. baking powder
1 t. baking soda

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Grease a Bundt pan or spray with cooking spray.
In a large bowl, beat together butter, sugar, applesauce, and eggs.
Mix in sour cream and pumpkin.
On low speed, stir in the flour, cocoa, spices, baking powder and soda just until blended.
Spread evenly in the prepared pan.
Bake for about 60 minutes,
or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.
Allow to cool in the pan on a baking rack.
Invert cake onto a serving plate.
Drizzle with chocolate icing.

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Chocolate Fudge Icing

1 cup granulated sugar
5 T. butter
1/3 cup whole milk
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Place sugar, butter and milk in medium saucepan over med-high heat.
Stir until mixture comes to a boil, 3 to 4 minutes.
Still stirring, let mixture boil one minute, until sugar dissolves.
Remove from heat.
Stir in chocolate chips and whisk until chocolate is melted and icing is smooth.


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2 comments:

Margaret in Minnesota said...

Wow! A hankerin' for chocolate, indeed!

This cake is truly beautiful, Barbara. May I ask you a question, though? As a family who does dessert every evening, what do you do with all the leftovers? Do you freeze them?

If it were up to me, I'd eat 'em up, but that's not so good for Momma's figure...

Barbara said...

Margaret,
Any leftovers become dessert the next night. In fact, I still have some of this cake left from Thursday (and it was just as good last night as the first night). Come for coffee today and you'll get cake!

I never "permanently" save dessert, and unless it's a big cake like this one, there is almost never leftovers.