Pumpkin Chocolate Cake

It’s been a whole year since I last made pumpkin cake. This year’s cake is the bigger, more chocolaty, version of last year’s mini pumpkin cake. This cake is 2 layers pumpkin, 1 layer chocolate, with pumpkin flavored frosting in between the layers, and vanilla frosting on the outside. Initially I had planned to make it four layers, with one extra layer of chocolate to make it symmetrical, but unfortunately my cake box was too short and I could not cap it closed after adding the fourth layer.

I have secretly been dreaming about this cake from the start of October, and could not wait to make it at the end for a friend’s party. My favorite part was the making of the fondant pumpkins on top of the cake. I started with a few wads of fondant in the approximate size of my pumpkins, and colored them orange (and kept a few white). If you use the wilton coloring pack, you’ll need to get a separate orange food color because unfortunately the coloring pack does not contain orange. Some of the Americolor food coloring packs do, I believe.

For the leaves and stalk of the pumpkins, I used a “Leaf Green” wilton food coloring, and the Brown wilton food coloring (included in the pack of 12 colors). Just a few swabs with a toothpick dipped into the fondant is enough to get the color you like.

To assemble my pumpkin, I rolled each pumpkin into a ball, drew down the sides with a toothpick for the pumpkin pattern. The pumpkin looks best if you draw the pumpkin pattern symmetrically so you have a even number of lines at the end, and also looks better if you err on the side of more lines. For my pumpkins with less lines, they looked too much like beach balls. Then I cut a small piece of brown fondant for the stalk. For the pumpkin vine, I twisted a piece of green fondant, and then curled it back onto the pumpkin top. To get the vine to stay looped on your pumpkin, brush a bit of water on the pumpkin where you want your loop to stick.

And there are your pumpkins! The small white one and the wide flat orange one on the left are my favorites, because with the most pumpkin lines, they looked less like beach balls than the two big pumpkins I strategically placed in the back where it is blurry 😉 For extra dazzle, dip a paintbrush in water, then in gold dust and brush the gold dust onto your pumpkins.

To assemble your cake, first bake all your layers. For this recipe, I experimented with the wilton bake strips to try to achieve the most even baking I can. It worked! I barely had to slice any tops of my cakes with my cake leveler after soaking the bake strips in water and wrapping them around each baking pan for more even heat distribution. For an excellent article experimenting with different methods of achieving flat topped cake, see the linked Craftsy article. The winners were wilton bake strips & the old wet towel method.

After I baked the cakes, I piped pumpkin flavored frosting onto the cake, then smoothed it out with an offset spatula before adding my next layer on top. When your cake is assembled, crumb coat it and set in the fridge for 30 minutes to seal the pesky crumbs. For the final layer of frosting, cover in vanilla frosting with a flat spatula for the sides, offset spatula for the top, finish it all off using either the spatulas or a plastic cake scraper. You can dip your spatula/ cake scraper in a bowl of warm water at the end to get that ultra-smooth finish since the heat of your instrument will melt the frosting as it smoothes over the edges (my favorite part of cake decorating!).

Once you’re happy with your frosting, fill chocolate ganache in a piping bag, snip off the tip, and pipe the edges first. I do not recommend dumping the ganache on the top of the cake and pushing it over the edges with a spatula, because if you do that the chocolate comes down in wide batches and lacks the precise look of pipped dripping chocolate. After you pipe the edges, place just enough ganache in the center to smooth and cover your cake. Add your pumpkins, sprinkle your gold stars and gold dust, and you are done!