Here we are again: pumpkin season. Ho, hum. Find pumpkin flavor in everything right now — from coffee to ice cream to beer. Admittedly, pumpkin recipes have become tiresome and repetitious. Despite my boredom, here I am, baking with pumpkin, yet again.
The “Pumpkin-Mocha Swirl Bundt Cake,” from Zoë François in Zoë Bakes Cakes, charms me with its bundt pan, its batter mixed by hand, and its distinctive swirls. This is my chance to triumph with swirls in my cake.
This cake is easy enough to assemble, but only if you have a food scale. Without a scale, you will need to “eyeball” the amounts of batter to pour and layer in the bundt pan. Do you trust your eyeballs? If not, use a scale like I did.
Generously grease the bundt pan with 1 Tbsp. of butter, then dust with cocoa powder.
Pumpkin pie spice is easy to assemble. As the note in the recipe below describes: 1¼ tsp. ground cinnamon, 1 tsp. ground ginger, ¼ tsp. ground cloves, ½ tsp. ground nutmeg.
Mix the orange batter by hand. We’re using no butter in this recipe.
Divide this batter equally into two bowls. These will weigh about 30.5 oz. for each bowl.
One of these two bowls will become the “cocoa batter,” where we add 1 tsp. of instant espresso powder and 2 Tbsp. of Dutch-processed cocoa powder. Read a good explanation of the differences between Dutch-processed and natural cocoa. Basically, Dutch-process is darker and fudgier.
Now, we will pour 8 different layers of batter into the bundt pan; start with a pumpkin pour, then a cocoa pour, and repeat. Each pour should weigh about 7.6 oz.
Equally weighed, we will have an artfully swirled cake.
Bake at 325°F for 1 hour 15 minutes.
Once baked, your cooked cake turns out easily from the pan. Dust with the powdered sugar/pumpkin spice combo. Slice and see the result of your careful work: your precise measurements = precise swirls. Hooray!
There’s no mistaking the taste of a pumpkin cake. It’s certainly vegetal, but thanks to the cake’s 2 total cups of sugar, we get our sweet reward. And how about the mocha swirls? Cocoa + espresso lend a smart, solid match for the sweet pumpkin.
Each month The Cake Slice Bakers are offered a selection of cakes from the current book we are baking through. This year it is Zoë Bakes Cakes by Zoē François. We each choose one cake to bake, and then on the 20th - never before - we all post about our cake on our blogs. There are a few rules that we follow, but the most important ones are to have fun and enjoy baking & eating cakes!
Follow our Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest pages where you can find all of our cakes, as well as inspiration for many other cakes. You can also click on the links below to take you to each of our cakes. If you have a blog and are interested in joining The Cake Slice Bakers and baking along with us, please send an email to thecakeslicebakers at gmail dot com for more details.
The Cake Slice Bakers also have a new Facebook group called The Cake Slice Bakers and Friends. This group is perfect for those who do not have a blog but want to join in the fun and bake through this book.
It is a new year and a new book - Zoë Bakes Cakes - and our choices for October 2022 were ~
Apple Cake with Honey Bourbon Glaze
Pumpkin-Mocha Swirl Bundt Cake
Hot Chocolate Cake
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