Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cake

"Thank you so much for the pumpkin bread you dropped off!" a good friend gushed a few years ago. "We loved it." Then a pause. "I was going to make a cream cheese frosting to go with it, but I was amazed how good it tasted without anything but powdered sugar on top! Delicious."

Well, that's because it was pumpkin cake, not pumpkin bread (but honestly, lots of pumpkin cake masquerades as bread, so no biggie). The idea of it comes from Anne Byrn and her Chocolate from the Cake Mix Doctor book (the same book inspiring this amazing Chocolate Brownie Trifle). I'm glad my friend liked it, and I'm even more glad this cake does work without a frosting or a glaze. Its deliciousness to effort ratio is off the charts, and it's the perfect treat for this time of year. 

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cake

Adapted from Chocolate from the Cake Mix Doctor

1 box plain yellow cake mix (18.25 oz)

15 oz canned pumpkin 

1/4 cup water

2 large eggs

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp ground allspice

2 tsp baking soda

1 cup chocolate chips

optional: 1 TB powdered sugar for garnish

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and generously grease a 12-cup bundt pan with cooking spray. Combine the cake mix, canned pumpkin, water, eggs, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and baking soda in a large bowl. Mix with an electric mixer on low for 1 minute. 

Stop, scrape down the sides of the bowl, and increase speed to medium, mixing for 2 more minutes. Scrape down sides again. Mix in the chocolate chips on low until they are evenly distributed throughout the batter. Pour batter into the greased bundt pan, smoothing the top.

Bake in the oven 42-46 minutes until it is lightly browned and springs back when lightly pressed with your finger. Cool in the pan on a wire rack for 20 minutes. Invert onto your cake stand or serving platter to to cool completely. This can take another 40 minutes. 

Finish with a dusting of powdered sugar. Note: if you add the powdered sugar before the cake has cooled, it will take on a yellowish tint. Boo. So go ahead and wait until it's cool to add the sugar.

Pinecone Candle Ring

Elin and I both fell in love with the pinecone wreath that Laurel posted about last month. So while we were all together for a few days in October, we set to work making one for Elin:

After they left, I stared at the bag of extra pinecones and thought, "Hmmm, these shouldn't go to waste. I need to make Elin a candle ring to match her wreath!" (Sorry, Elin. Present spoiler alert.) So I chugged back to Walmart where we had purchased the filler flowers, berries, and picks to buy some more.

I had hoped they would have a smaller wreath frame that I could use for a candle ring, but they didn't, so I browsed in their craft section until I found an unfinished, 6 1/2" round wooden plaque. I used it for my base, and it worked great. (I often don't think about taking pictures until I am in the middle of a project, but you can see the plaque here:)

Leaving a 3" hole in the middle for a pillar candle, I glued on rings of pinecones, tipping each ring outward a little until the final ring was almost parallel with the table. I then filled in gaps with red and orange flowers, berries, green leaves, and gold filigree flowers and picks. Elin specifically wanted oranges as well as reds in her wreath so that it can be used in the fall as well as in the winter, so I continued that theme:

As Laurel suggested for the wreaths, I sprayed the finished ring lightly with gold spray paint to add a little extra sparkle and then inserted the candle:

Merry Christmas, Elin!