Chocolate Pumpkin Cake

Moist chocolate pumpkin cake with cocoa powder and chocolate chips is out of this world delicious. Not just a fun Fall dessert loaf but year round it will make your mouth water. If you love moist pumpkin bread but really want to satisfy your sweet tooth too this is the best Fall dessert.

You don’t have to “do plain” all the time though, throw in some chocolate or make pumpkin bread with apples for a twist. There are lots of add ins as far as that goes. From dried cranberries or crushed nuts and everything in between you can transform the “norm” into lots of different ways to satisfy your sweet tooth year round.

How to Make Chocolate Pumpkin Muffins

Whether you make a loaf, regular, large or mini muffins you make the batter the same way. The only difference one the baking begins is you’d use a different pan and I like to use paper liners in this case so they lift out easier. Use the same baking temperature but for 18-20 minutes. Check at 17 min. Once the middle is no longer wet, gently touch, as soon as it springs back take them out, and out of the pan too to cool.

Chocolate Pumpkin Loaf Cake Ingredients

• Pumpkin puree canned
  • or make homemade Instant Pot pumpkin at home so you know what’s in it.
• Cocoa powder
• Butter
• Sugar
• Brown sugar
• Egg
• Sour cream
• All purpose flour
  • make sure you measure flour properly
• Semi sweet chocolate chips are the best, with an extra 1/2 cup on the top too
• Loaf pan with non stick cooking spray or parchment paper lined
• Wire rack for cooling is helpful

Dairy Free Option

If you need dairy free you can find options for butter and chips at the store for that too. I have used a plant based butter product from Country Crock in the past and literally you will never know the difference.

What goes good in pumpkin bread?

There are so many possibilities. If you amp it up with some cocoa and chocolate chips though you will be blown away. Pumpkin banana bread is another favorite if I have overripe bananas to use.

Chocolate Pumpkin Bread with Cake Mix

If you wanted to do this easier and faster you could use our 2 ingredient pumpkin muffins recipe for the batter but instead of spice mix use devil’s food. I will make it this way often when it is snowy and the kids have been out skiing all day. When home and exhausted I like to have a little treat done to serve up.

How to Make Pumpkin Bread with Cocoa Powder

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. In a large bowl combine together flour, cocoa powder and baking soda together.
3. In another bowl mix pumpkin, room temp. butter and egg, both sugars, vanilla and sour cream until smooth.
4. Slowly add dry ingredients into wet until incorporated. Stir in 1/2 c chocolate chips, or other add ins
5. Pour batter into a prepared pan sprayed lightly with non stick spray. Top with remaining chocolate chips.
6. Bake at 350 F for 45-50 minutes until toothpick inserted in the center comes out mostly clean with some crumbs on it (meaning it’s moist, but no wet batter on it).
7. Take out, put on cooling rack to cool for 10 minutes minimum before removing from the pan.
8. Then set out of the pan on a cooling rack until at room temperature for the moistest cake.

As always you’ll want to have 2 bowls ready. One bowl needs to mix the dry ingredients and the other has the wet ingredients. Then incorporate the two gently without over-mixing the two. If you want to make these into muffins, bake time will just decrease to 18-20 min. Here’s what it looks like when it’s sliced. Use a sharp knife to slice and enjoy as a treat for breakfast, for Christmas brunch or a dessert.

Tips

Other pumpkin recipes you’ll love

• Other easy pumpkin desserts with pumpkin puree recipes we have on The Typical Mom blog that people rave about are:
• Our pumpkin pie dump cake is out of this world delicious with a crushed pecan brown sugar crumble on top.
• Then try this pumpkin pudding cake that is moist beyond belief! With a bit of pumpkin pie spice inside and ice cream on top takes this over the edge.

Use zucchini in our chocolate banana muffins too. It gives it even more moistness we all love. These are homemade too and great when you have browned fruit that needs to be used up.

And our MOST popular recipe is here. During the Fall season we make pumpkin zucchini muffins a lot! Below is a printable version of this recipe with nutrition facts too such as calories and saturated fat. This is true comfort food though so just ignore it all other than the YUMs. 😉

If you want to know how to half a recipe to make less, read this post. Tip: Spray your pan with non stick spray to clean a pot.