A delicious moist chocolate cake that you will make again and again!
I experimented inventing this chocolate cake five years ago when I became tired of chocolate cakes that were too dry, and it turned out so delicious that I have made it many times since, often as the base of amazing birthday cakes for both adults and kids alike!
Firstly, yes, this chocolate cake has pumpkin puree in it, this is the secret that makes this chocolate cake so very moist and decadent. This cake is no light-weight, it is dense, heavy and delicious! If you’re not a fan of pumpkin, I promise you, you can’t taste any pumpkin flavour in the cake, and once your friends and family taste the cake, they will all be remarking how moist the cake is and asking you for the recipe!
This cake uses my Super moist pumpkin spice cake recipe as the base, but replaces the spices with cocoa. If you’re new to cooking, see my instructions on how to prepare steamed pumpkin from scratch in my Mastering the Basics section.
The cake slices into layers really well without falling apart into a crumbly mess. I like to slice the cake in two or three layers and slather each one with my not too sweet butter cream icing recipe.
The best super moist chocolate cake
Equipment
- 1 Stand mixer
- 1 22cm cake tin
- 1 Spatula
Ingredients
Ingredients
- 3 cups steamed and mashed pumpkin
- 1 cup vegetable or olive oil
- 1 cup white sugar
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 3 cups plain (all-purpose flour)
- 1 ½ teaspoon baking powder
- 1 ¼ teaspoons bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
- ¾ cup cocoa powder
- 60 milliliters milk
Chocolate buttercream Icing
- 500 g butter
- 500 g icing sugar (powdered sugar)
- ½ cup cocoa powder
Instructions
Instructions for cake
- In the bowl of your stand mixer, place your pumpkin, oil, eggs, sugars and milk. Mix until just combined.
- To the mixed wet ingredients, add the flour, coco powder, baking soda and baking powder. Mix until just combined.
- Pour the cake mix into a buttered and floured cake tin (or line a cake tin with baking paper/parchment).
- Preheat the oven to 160C degrees Celsius (or 350 Fahrenheit).
- Bake for 90 minutes.
- The cake should be cooked when a skewer should be able to be inserted into the centre of the cake and be clean when it is pulled out of the cake.
- Allow the cake to cool completely before completely before removing from cake tin/pan.
- Store in an airtight container.
Instructions for chocolate buttercream icing:
- In your stand mixer beat butter and vanilla until pale and fluffy
- Sift icing sugar and cocoa powder into a bowl
- Add a few tablespoons of the icing sugar and cocoa mixture at a time, making sure to beat well after each addition. If you add it too quickly the buttercream won't be as fluffy. If you're tight on time, you can add about 1/4 cup at a time and it will still turn out ok, just not quite as fluffy. If the mixture becomes too thick, add some milk (full fat) a tiny bit at a time to loosen the icing up. Make sure the milk isn't too cold or it will cool the icing down and make it difficult to work with.
- Apply the chocolate buttercream to the cake. I like to use my spatula for this job.
Recent Posts
Want new recipe ideas that will use a lot of zucchini, where zucchini is also the main ingredient of the dish? Here are my favourites! Ah zucchini season…. where one finds oneself googling...
Another recipe in my 'recipes that use a lot of zucchini' arsenal. If you're looking at how to make an omelette that's not bland, but tired of the 'usual' omelette ingredients like mushrooms or...