A tale of two cakes — Cake #1

My mom and I celebrate our birthdays exactly one week apart, and this year we had Sunday birthdays.  These days, its rare for us to be together to celebrate, but this year my mom spent part of her birthday weekend with us, which meant I was able to treat her to a homemade birthday dinner and cake.

Remember that “One pumpkin, five ways,” post I wrote a couple of weeks ago?  Turns out it should have said SIX ways.  I transformed the last of the pumpkin puree into a delicious chocolate pumpkin cake, a recipe I created by merging our chocolate zucchini cake recipe with the pumpkin bread recipe.

Recipe merge verdict?  Success!  A rich, moist, chocolate cake, mildly sweet, yielding a delicious, buttercream-frosted final product.  Come back later this week for cake #2 (hint: it involves more chocolate and a delicious pudding).

Chocolate Pumpkin Cake

Recipe by Melissa
Yield: One 8×8 cake (double for 9×13 or layer cake)

 Ingredients
1 (15 oz) can pumpkin
1 cup sugar
2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
4 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled
4 oz. semisweet chocolate
2 large eggs, beaten
1 tsp vanilla

 Directions
Cook the pumpkin and sugar together in a medium saucepan over medium high heat, stirring constantly, until thick and shiny, 5 to 7 minutes. Set aside to cool.

Use same, warm pan to melt butter and chocolate together.

Adjust oven rack to the lower middle position and heat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour an 8×8 square cake pan.

Combine the wheat flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and baking powder in a large bowl. In a separate bowl whisk the cooled pumpkin mixture, butter and chocolate mixture, eggs and vanilla together.

Gently fold the liquid mixture into the flour mixture with a rubber spatula until just combined (do not over mix). The batter will be very thick.

Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out with just a few crumbs attached, 40-45 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through baking.

Cool completely before frosting.

Buttercream frosting

Yield: Frosting for one 8×8 cake  (double if doubling cake recipe)

Ingredients
1/2 pound unsalted butter (or use half Earth Balance, half butter)
1/2 pound powdered sugar
1/2 t. vanilla
1/2 t. almond extract

Directions
Set butter out on counter ahead of time to soften slightly.  (Do NOT melt butter!)  Weigh out 1/2 pound of powdered sugar, then sift into bowl.  Using electric beaters, whip butter and sugar together.  Add vanilla and almond.  Do not frost until cake is completely cooled.