I got this recipe from Cooking For Real, which she evidently got from the Simply In Season cookbook.
This recipe started out as Winter Squash Bars and ended up as Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cake. Read on to see how!
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cake
INGREDIENTS:
1 15-oz can organic pumpkin (of course you CAN use 2 cups puréed squash or pumpkin if you’re ambitious)
1 cup Sucanat (just use sugar if that’s what you have)
½ cup white sugar
¾ cup coconut oil, melted
4 eggs
1 t. vanilla
½ t. salt
INSTRUCTIONS:
Beat together in mixing bowl. Then mix in:
-1 cup all purpose flour (I used white whole wheat from Trader Joe’s)
-1 cup whole wheat pastry flour (or plain ol’ whole wheat, if that’s what you have)
-2 t. baking powder
-1 t. baking soda
-1 t. ground cinnamon
Fold in 1 cup mini chocolate chips (This is my addition. Because EVERYTHING is better with chocolate!)
Pour into a lightly greased 13×9 glass baking dish. Bake in preheated oven at 325° for 25 -30 min. (Set to 350° for a metal pan or for an 11×17-inch jelly roll pan, as the recipe originally called for.)
(This is a great opportunity to get your kids involved in the kitchen. They love to mix stuff.)
* * *
Okay, so here is where ideals and reality intersect. This recipe calls for puréed winter squash or pumpkin. Just yesterday I waxed eloquent about buying local whenever possible. But when I went to make this recipe, I looked at the fresh, locally grown butternut squash sitting on the floor of my pantry. Then my eyes wandered up a few feet where 4 pretty cans of organic pumpkin sat on a shelf. And I made a quick decision and pulled out a can of pumpkin and set to work.
The moral of this story? It’s great to be mindful of what is local and in season, but sometimes the lure of canned pumpkin is too strong to resist.
The other major modification I made was to use a 13×9 pan rather than a 11×17-inch jelly roll pan. Therefore mine turned out more like pumpkin cake or pumpkin bread than pumpkin bars. I told my kids that I would try the jelly roll pan next time so they’d be more like brownies than cake, and they immediately responded, “Don’t change a thing!”
Alrighty then. Pumpkin cake it is!
This post is linked to Tasty Tuesday at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam.
Yum! I am making this today! Perfect for a chilly fall day!! Thanks!
We love all things pumpkin in our house and this looks delicious!
I LOVE pumpkin. It is one of my all time favorite things, and I love finding new ways to prepare it. I’ll have to give this a try.
I’m usually not too ambitious in the kitchen, but we’re having a “Halloweenie” party this weekend, and this pumpkin cake would be a perfect dessert. Thanks for the recipe.
Also.,, just returned from our first trip to Philadelphia (for a convention my husband attended), and your area of the country is beautiful this time of year with so much to offer. Our kids especially liked the Please Touch museum. We’re new fans of Pennsylvania!
Ooooh so glad you got a taste of our lovely side of the state!
Yum! I bet this would work with sweet potato too. Next time I bake sweet potatoes, I’ll bake a few extra and use the puree in this recipe. I’ll let you know if it works out. Thanks for sharing the recipe.
I’d love to know how that works!
We are enjoying this cake right now, it’s still warm from baking. This cake is excellent! The texture is perfect! I am so happy to have this delicious and easy pumpkin cake recipe that uses healthier ingredients!! With a glass of cold raw milk, it doesn’t get much better!
Oh yes ma’am. It is DIVINE with a glass of cold raw milk.
That is exactly how I’ve been enjoying it.
Oh, man…this looks delicious.
I haven’t jumped onto the coconut oil bandwagon yet, though I am reading daily of it’s wonderful health benefits. If I want to make this SOON (like yesterday) and don’t have coconut oil in my house, what could I substitute?
Devin, you can try melted butter. I hate to use Canola or something like that, but I suppose that is the only other option.
I actually used 1/4 C coconut oil and 1/2 C soft butter. It turned out great!
Good to know! Thanks!
I can’t wait to try this recipe – thanks for sharing!