Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cake

Fall is officially here, which means we can stop pretending we haven’t been waiting for an excuse to put pumpkin in everything.

I’m starting with cake.

This one has all the things I want from my first pumpkin cake of the season: plenty of pumpkin, warm spices, a soft buttery crumb and dark chocolate chips scattered all the way through. Because as much as I love pumpkin spice, I firmly believe it gets better when chocolate is involved.

And it’s an easy one. No frosting, no layers, no decorating, no elaborate plans for the top. Just mix, let your kitchen fill with the smell of fall baking for the next hour, and make coffee while it cools.

And since we’ve officially opened pumpkin season, there’s really no reason to stop at one recipe. Try my No-Bake Pumpkin Cookies next, or Jorge’s 3-Ingredient Pumpkin Pancakes if you’re not quite done putting pumpkin into things yet.

Ingredients for My Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cake

The pumpkin does more than add flavor here. It brings a lot of moisture to the batter, which is why the finished cake stays so soft.

Here’s what you’ll need for this pumpkin chocolate chip cake:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour (250 g)
• About 1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice (8 g) to bring all those warm cinnamon-and-spice flavors.
• 1½ teaspoons baking powder (6 g)
• ¾ cup + 3 tablespoons unsalted butter (210 g), softened
• ½ cup granulated sugar (100 g)
• 1 large egg, at room temperature
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract (10 ml)
• 1 cup pumpkin puree (240 g)
• ¾ cup dark chocolate chips (130 g) for the little pockets of chocolate that appear all throughout the cake.

Baked in an 8-inch (20 cm) round pan, this makes about 8 generous slices. You can certainly cut it into 10 smaller pieces, but I feel like we’re getting unnecessarily optimistic about people’s restraint around cake.

How To Make It

Before getting started, preheat the oven to 350°F. Line an 8-inch round cake pan with parchment paper, or lightly grease and flour it.

I start by creaming the butter and sugar properly. Give them a good three or four minutes with the mixer. You want the mixture noticeably paler and fluffier before moving on because you’re incorporating air here, and that helps give the cake a lighter crumb.

The egg and vanilla go in next.

Add the pumpkin and don’t panic if the mixture doesn’t look particularly impressive. Pumpkin puree and creamed butter aren’t necessarily going to produce the smoothest-looking bowl you’ve ever seen. Once the dry ingredients go in, everything comes together.

And speaking of the dry ingredients, I mix the flour, pumpkin pie spice and baking powder together in a separate bowl first. That way, the spice and baking powder are evenly distributed before they hit the batter, rather than leaving us with one very enthusiastic bite of pumpkin spice.

I add the dry ingredients in three batches rather than dumping everything in at once, and from this point on I keep the mixing gentle. As soon as you can’t see dry flour anymore, stop.

Fold in the chocolate chips, spread the batter into the prepared pan, and bake for 45-50 minutes, until golden on top. The exact baking time can vary slightly depending on your oven, so keep an eye on it toward the end.

So far, so easy. The only slightly tricky part comes when it’s time to decide whether the cake is actually done. Pumpkin keeps it naturally moist, so you’re not looking for a completely dry toothpick. A few moist crumbs are exactly what you want. Wet batter isn’t. If there’s still batter on the toothpick, give it a few more minutes and check again.

Once it’s done, let the cake cool in the pan for 10 minutes before transferring it to a wire rack to cool completely. I know it’s tempting to cut into it right away, but giving it time to cool makes slicing much easier.

Pumpkin Puree, Not Pumpkin Pie Filling

An important distinction if you’re buying pumpkin in a can: you want 100% pumpkin puree, not pumpkin pie filling.

Pumpkin pie filling already contains sugar and spices, so using it here would change both the sweetness and flavor of the cake. Plain pumpkin puree lets us control all of that ourselves.

You Want Dark Chocolate Chips

I like dark chocolate here because there’s already plenty happening on the sweeter, warmer side of things. The slight bitterness of dark chocolate gives the pumpkin and spices a bit of contrast.

That said, this isn’t a rule. Semi-sweet works beautifully, and milk chocolate will give you a sweeter cake. You could also chop up a chocolate bar instead of using chips if you want more irregular pools of melted chocolate throughout.

Don’t Wait for a Clean Toothpick

This is not the cake where we’re waiting for a bone-dry toothpick.

Start checking around the 45-minute mark. If the toothpick comes out with wet batter, it needs longer. If it comes out with a few moist crumbs, you’re there. Waiting until it comes out completely clean can mean taking the cake further than it needs to go, and we worked too hard for that soft pumpkin crumb.