Chocolate Pumpkin Cake

After roasting up two pumpkins, we have an abundance of pumpkin puree. While searching Eat Your Books for pumpkiny recipes, I discovered that the boy's chocolate book recipe (that he's sadly never cooked from!) had something that used pumpkin puree. Intrigued and with all of the ingredients on hand, I decided to give this a try. It doesn't have much of a pumpkin flavour; rather, the pumpkin is used to lend a ridiculous level of moistness to the cake. It's a perfect cake for the holiday season. The original recipe fills a Bundt pan, but I scaled in half and used a loaf pan. The original also calls for 6 ounces of walnuts, but I omitted as I don't really like nuts floating around in my chocolate!

One year ago: Blue Cheese and Red Potato Tart
Two years ago: Asparagus, Oka, Pine Nuts, and Lemon Pasta

Chocolate Pumpkin Cake (from Maida Heatter's Book of Great Chocolate Desserts)

Ingredients
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp nutmeg
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1 cup unsalted butter
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
2 cups granulated sugar
4 eggs
2 cups pumpkin puree
6 ounces (1 1/2 cups) walnuts, broken into medium pieces (I omitted)

1. Preheat oven to 325F. Butter a 10-inch Bundt pan (3 quarts).
2. Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, nutmeg, and cocoa. Set aside.
3. In a large bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter.
4. Add vanilla and sugar to butter and beat well.
5. Add eggs to butter one at a time, scraping and beating after each addition.
6. On low speed, add half of sifted dry ingredients, then pumpkin, and remaining dry ingredients.
7. Stir in nuts.
8. Pour batter into pan.
9. Bake for 1 1/2 hours or until cake tester comes out dry and clean.
10. Let stand for 15 minutes. Invert on rack and cool out of pan for several hours or overnight.