Pumpkin Chocolate Fudge Cake

Here is dessert #1 of my little Thanksgiving Dessert Twists series. This year, I have decided to go on a different route than normal using the same major ingredients—pumpkin, apple, pecans. First stop is pumpkin pie!

While you can never replace a pumpkin pie, with its warm spices, natural wholesome pumpkin flavor, flaky, buttery crust, I believe you give it a nice chocolate friend for us that are super obsessed! I know that you’re seeing pumpkin everything everywhere right now—from the latté to the candy, the chip to even the beer, it’s been absolutely huge this fall, and rightfully so. Pumpkin is something that obviously screams autumn, and holidays, and warm coziness. As you have read in many, many of my most recent posts, you just can’t make it through September-November without a pumpkin baked good! Like here and here.

So, naturally, I have added yet another pumpkin dessert to the table, but this time not only is it full of rich chocolate, this fudge cake can be made in fabulous individual ramekins—basically made to order! After an extremely long afternoon of eating that incredible Thanksgiving dinner, you can pop one of these little cakes into the oven, digest for 30 minutes while it bakes and cools slightly, and then truly indulge. They can even be made a day ahead of time—bonus points!

I love the denseness in this cake. Looking at the ingredients, chocolate is what it’s mostly made up of! You’ve got a tiny bit of butter + the pumpkin purée for a bit of fat, eggs to bind it, a touch of sweetness, and then some flour to give it some body. There isn’t even that much sugar in it! Can we argue that it is mildly healthy?! Sure!

And, it is Oh. So. Fudgy. Like, out of this world. This is like a deluxe, eat at a really nice restaurant dessert—and you can have it for any party, not just Thanksgiving, and blow people’s minds!

Choose your favorite chocolate, try not to eat half the bar like me, and treat yo’self to the most luxurious chocolate pumpkin fudge cake there is!

ingredients

Semi-Sweet Chocolate (melted)—4 oz

Butter—0.75 oz, or 1 ½ TBL

Brown Sugar—1 oz, or 2 TBL

Eggs—2

Flour—0.65 oz, or 2 TBL

Salt—pinch

Puréed Pumpkin—1.25 oz, or 2 TBL

Cinnamon—0.1 oz, or ½ tsp

process

Over a double boiler, melt your chocolate. Once melted, remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly.

Preheat your oven to 425˚ F.

Rub the inside of 2 ramekins with butter.

In the bowl of your mixer, cream the butter and brown sugar.

Add the eggs.

Once combined, add the flour, salt, cinnamon and pumpkin.

When all is mixed well, add a small amount of the melted chocolate, just so that the eggs won’t be shocked by the warm chocolate therefore they won’t cook.

Once the chocolate has been mixed well with the batter, slowly stream in the rest of your chocolate. Mix until just combined.

Pour the batter evenly into the 2 ramekins, they should not be filled any higher than ¾ of the way.

Place on a sheet pan and place in the oven.

Bake for 12 minutes, the cake will just start to pull away from the sides of the ramekin.

Remove from the oven, allow to cool for just a couple of minutes.

The center is slightly molten, and will become extra rich and fudgy the more that it cools!

You may either eat right out of the dish, or invert onto another place, dust with confectioner’s sugar, add a little bit of whipped cream, and enjoy!

Bon Appétit! 

Ginger Apple Cake with Dulce de Leche Drizzle

I know that an apple pie is basically a must at any and all fall events, especially at Thanksgiving, but today, I am giving you an addition to an apple pie—a ginger apple bourbon cake. Those three ingredients go together better than a peanut butter & jelly fluffernutter.

Mmm mm mmm.

Come to think of it, I don’t know why all apple pies don’t have the ginger and bourbon in them as well. Although bourbon and I weren’t that great of friends until we met up in Louisville and became besties, now I have the urge to put it in every single thing that I bake with. Whether cookies, cakes, pies, in a glass, we are sort of attached at the hip.

Did I just say that I am best friends with bourbon? I guess it can’t be too far off, seeing as I am basically a cookie in human form—yes, I seem to eat at least a couple a day…

So, when I decided to bake this cake, I figured that I wanted as much flavor as possible, for this to taste more like an apple covered in bourbon and rolled in ginger, which, I believe, is what the final product truly tastes like. By soaking the apples in the alcohol, they really absorb all of the flavor, and then adding the saturated apples as well as remaining liquid into the cake batter, it’s like a delicious punch in the face!

Okay—let’s go for a big hug of flavor instead.

Fresh, minced ginger. Enough said. Covered in some caramel or dulche de leche. I know I have you salivating!

As I sit here and munch on a piece that is bigger than I care to admit, I feel like if I could just hand out a cake to each of my readers, you would be instantly sold and would be saying “this is the bomb”—like Roberto did. Sadly, I can’t see all of you fabulous KBBakers and give out cakes, so you’re going to have to trust my apple-ginger-bourbon trio, knowing that it is to die for, and bake a few cakes yourself!

ingredients

Granny Smith Apples—2 medium

Butter—6 oz, or 12 TBL

Brown Sugar—3.75 oz, or ½ C

Sugar—2 oz, or ¼ C

Eggs—2

Bourbon—0.75 oz, or 2 TBL

Flour—6.25 oz, or 1 ¼ C

Fresh Ginger, minced—0.35 oz, or 1 TBL

Cinnamon—0.2 oz, or 1 tsp

process

Dice the apples into small cubes.

Combine the diced apples along with the bourbon in a small saucepot.

Put on the heat, bring to a boil, and then turn off the heat, cover and allow to sit until ready to put in your cake batter.

Preheat your oven to 325˚ F.

In the bowl of your mixer, cream the butter and sugars.

Add the eggs.

Once incorporated, add in the sifted flour, cinnamon and minced ginger.

Add in the apples/bourbon mixture.

Only mix until your batter has formed, overmixing will lead to air bubbles in your final product.

Spray a bundt pan with nonstick spray, and then coat with a light layer of flour so that the cake will come out easier after it has baked and cooled.

Pour your batter into the prepared pan.

Bake for 45 minutes, until the cake springs back when touched.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely before taking it out of the cake pan.

to make dulche de leche

Fill up a large pot with water and bring to a boil.

Take a can of sweetened condensed milk and remove its label.

Once your pot is boiling, place the can (I like to make at least 2 cans at once, always a great sauce to have on hand!) on its side, making sure that the water is fully covering the can.

If you do not keep the cans covered with water the entire time, there's a chance that the cans will explode from uneven heat!

Allow the cans to simmer for anywhere between 2 hours 30 minutes and 3 hours.

After the time has passed, very carefully remove the cans from the simmering water (oven mitts and tongs!),

Allow them to cool completely before opening.

Once cool, open and use!

Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

Bon Appétit!