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!