Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bundt Cake — This easy pumpkin cake is loaded with chocolate chips and drizzled in rich and decadent chocolate ganache. It’s one of the best pumpkin cakes I’ve ever had!! An EASY no-mixer fall favorite cake that everyone just LOVES!
Table of Contents
- Easy Pumpkin Bundt Cake … with Chocolate Chips!
- Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bundt Cake Ingredients
- How to Make Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bundt Cake
- Recipe FAQs
- Tips for the Best Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bundt Cake
- The Best Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bundt Cake with Chocolate Ganache Recipe
- More Easy Pumpkin Desserts:
Easy Pumpkin Bundt Cake … with Chocolate Chips!
I originally posted this recipe in the fall of 2012. I had a little girl in the kitchen that day who was just 5 years old helping me. She’s now a freshman in high school. I feel like I remember more about this cake than I sometimes do about the last 9 years that have seemingly passed by in the true blink of an eye.
If you’re lucky enough to have small kids underfoot, bake a pumpkin cake with them! You will thank yourself when they’re in high school and far too busy to be baking cakes with you.
The last decade of blogging hasn’t been like the first few years when I started and (over) shared about my personal life, but I wanted to at least share that memory.
I went on to write a cookbook dedicated to only pumpkin recipes, published in 2014. It’s called Cooking With Pumpkin and I’d love it if you wanted to buy or download a copy! I included this pumpkin chocolate chip bundt cake in my cookbook because it’s just THAT good!
The pumpkin puree keeps this chocolate pumpkin bundt cake moist and dense and the spices, including pumpkin pie spice, allspice, cinnamon, and cloves, complement the pumpkin puree and are a reminder that fall is here.
Being the chocaholic that I am, I used chocolate in two ways. Chocolate chips are woven throughout the cake and chocolate ganache is poured over the top.
The ganache is so easy to make and comes together in about 1 minute in the microwave. Chocolate chips, cream, and vanilla. It’ so simple to make but tastes so decadent.
The ganache stays a bit soft and silky, even over time, which is very different from a chocolate buttercream which hardens and dries out after it’s exposed to the air. I love buttercream but not when it gets crunchy.
Between the chocolate chips in the cake and the chocolate ganache on top, if you like your pumpkin with a side of chocolate, this cake will make you happy.
It made me very happy.
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bundt Cake Ingredients
To make this pumpkin bundt cake with chocolate chips, you’ll need:
- Eggs
- Pumpkin puree
- Granulated sugar
- Canola oil
- Sour cream
- Vanilla extract
- Butter extract
- Spices
- All-purpose flour
- Baking soda
- Salt
- Semi-sweet chocolate chips
- Cream or half and half
Note: Scroll down to the recipe card section of the post for the ingredients with amounts included and for more complete directions.
Can the Butter Extract Be Omitted?
I added a bit of butter extract to the batter and if it’s not something you keep on hand, don’t worry about it. From time to time, I use butter extract as a flavor enhancer and flavor booster in cookie dough and cake batter.
I wouldn’t necessarily say it makes things taste ‘buttery’. Rather, it rounds out the flavors, complements the existing flavors, and gives food that homey quality, and although you can’t exactly put your finger on what it is, it just makes you want to have seconds.
Just like adding brewed coffee to chocolate cake batter does not make the chocolate cake taste like a chocolate-coffee-flavored-cake and instead intensifies the chocolate flavor, the butter extract principle is similar. It enhances without making you think you just swallowed a stick of butter or anything.
Butter extract is only about $2.99 for a little vial, compared to about $6.99+ for vanilla extract of the same size, and it’s a fun little bargain extract to keep around. I add a few drops of it to the melted butter to be poured over popcorn for really buttery-flavored buttered popcorn.
How to Make Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bundt Cake
Making a pumpkin bundt cake with chocolate chips couldn’t be easier! Here are the basic recipe steps:
- Whisk together the wet ingredients in a large bowl, then mix in the dry ingredients.
- Gently fold in the chocolate chips.
- Turn the batter into a greased and floured 12-cup bundt pan.
- Bake until the top has set and is golden, or a toothpick comes out clean (due to the chocolate chips, you may hit some chocolate patches with the insertion test).
- Let the cake cool for 15 minutes before inverting it.
- Once the pumpkin chocolate chip bundt cake is mostly cool, top with chocolate ganache.
Recipe FAQs
I baked this pumpkin chocolate chip cake in a 12-cup Bundt pan, but it can be baked in a 10-cup Bundt, and you’d probably have success dividing the batter among two 8-by-4-inch loaf pans.
Or, follow this classic pumpkin chocolate chip cake recipe so you don’t have to worry at all about pan conversions!
I love cake as much as the next person, but many of us are cooking for ourselves or small families and we don’t necessarily need ginormous Bundts just laying around and this one isn’t extreme.
This pumpkin chocolate chip cake will keep for up to 5 days in an airtight container at room temperature.
In an effort to duplicate that springy yellow-cake-mix-cake quality, I added sour cream. Sour cream, or Greek yogurt, gives cakes a spongy and springy quality, tenderizes them, and keeps them soft and moist. There is nothing worse than dry cake and I’d rather have nothing than a piece of dry cake.
I didn’t actually use butter in the cake and used oil instead. Oil makes cakes moister, springier, and softer than butter.
I do love the flavor of butter in cookies and pie crust, but in recipes where the butter flavor would get lost anyway, such as this one with the pumpkin, the spices, and all the chocolate going on, may as well use oil to keep the cake moister. Plus, the butter extract makes up for any lack of real butter.
Tips for the Best Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bundt Cake
I used a mixture of cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, all spice, and cloves in this pumpkin cake recipe. If you don’t have all of these spices on hand, mix and match with what you do have. It will probably turn out fine!
Once the dry ingredients are mixed into the wet, don’t over mix! This is a thicker cake batter, and you can easily over-develop the gluten and create a dense cake.
The pumpkin chocolate bundt cake MUST cool in the pan for at least 15 minutes before it can be inverted. If you try to invert the cake right away, you run the risk of the cake sinking.
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The Best Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bundt Cake with Chocolate Ganache
Ingredients
Cake
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup canned pumpkin puree, not pumpkin pie filling
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- ½ cup canola or vegetable oil
- ¼ cup sour cream, Greek yogurt may be substituted
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon butter extract, optional
- ¼ teaspoon cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
- ¼ teaspoon allspice
- ¼ teaspoon cloves
- 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- pinch salt, optional
- 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
Chocolate Ganache
- ⅔ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
- ¼ cup cream or half-and-half
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- optionally add 1 to 2 tablespoons rum or bourbon, coffee liqueur, or chocolate-flavored liqueur
Instructions
Cake:
- Preheat oven to 350F. Spray a 12-cup Bundt or tube-cake pan with cooking spray (I use Pam for Bakingwith excellent results) or grease and flour the pan; set aside.
- In a large bowl combine eggs, pumpkin puree, sugar, oil, sour cream, vanilla extract, butter extract, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, allspice, cloves (if you don’t have all of them on hand, just use what you do have) and whisk to combine until mixture is smooth and silky.
- Add the flour, baking soda, salt and stir until just combined (don’t overmix or the gluten will over-develop and cake will be tougher).
- Fold in the chocolate chips and pour batter into prepared pan, smoothing it lightly with a spatula if necessary and give it a slam on the counter to release any air.
- Bake for 38 to 42 minutes, or until top has set (it may crackle, this is okay) and is golden or a cake tester, toothpick, or blade of a knife comes out clean (due to the chocolate chips, you may hit some chocolate patches with the insertion test).
- Allow cake to cool in pan for about 15 minutes before inverting and releasing cake from pan and placing it on a rack to finish cooling. While cake cools, make the ganache.
Chocolate Ganache:
- Place chocolate in a medium microwave-safe bowl and heat on high power for 1 minute to soften chocolate; set aside.
- In a small microwave-safe bowl or measuring cup, heat the cream (I used half-and-half) on high power just until it begins to bubble and show signs of boiling, about 1 minute.
- Pour hot cream over chocolate and let it stand about 1 minute. Whisk vigorously until chocolate has melted and mixture is smooth and velvety.
- Add vanilla, optional alcohol, and whisk to combine. Set bowl aside for about 5 minutes, allowing ganache to cool and thicken a bit.
- Whisk mixture briefly before preparing to drizzle it over the cake. Ganache will set up a bit with time, but remains quite viscous and drippy.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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More Easy Pumpkin Desserts:
Easy Pumpkin Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting — Moist pumpkin cake is topped with a creamy homemade cream cheese frosting. This easy fall dessert is perfect for Thanksgiving, Halloween, and more!
The Best Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread — This pumpkin chocolate chip bread is truly the best homemade pumpkin bread you’ll ever make. It’s moist, packed with chocolate chips, and tastes like fall!
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Brownies — Rich, fudgy brownies topped with pumpkin and chocolate chips!! An EASY, no mixer pumpkin brownie recipe that’s FASTER than using a boxed mix! Bring on pumpkin spice season!!
Cream Cheese-Filled Pumpkin Bread — This is without a doubt the BEST pumpkin bread recipe! This pumpkin cream cheese bread tastes like it has cheesecake baked into the middle. You’ll definitely want a second slice!
Soft and Chewy Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies — Between the molasses, pumpkin pie spice, and pumpkin pie spice extract that I used, these pumpkin chocolate chip cookies beautifully showcase the flavors of fall!
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cake — This soft and moist pumpkin cake is loaded with chocolate in every bite!! An EASY one-bowl fall dessert that’s perfect for impromptu entertaining or anytime a pumpkin craving strikes!!
Originally posted October 1, 2012 and reposted September 29, 2021 with updated text.
Wonderful Gluten-free and Dairy free. I took it to friends for Friday night dinner dessert and they all loved it. I used XO all purpose flour, Chosen Foods avocado oil, yoso coconut yogurt, and So Nice Barista instead of the cream. The non-dairy chocolate chips were left over my my April stock-up because I can’t get them year-round. The reason I specified brand names is that it’s always an experiment with gluten/dairy-free substitutes. It took 10 or 15 more minutes to cook in the Bundt pan – I can’t remember which – I’m sorry – I was in a hurry and needed it to cool enough to glaze and the glaze to harden in the fridge before we covered it to take to to dinner…
Wonderful Gluten-free and Dairy free. I took it to friends for Friday night dinner dessert and they all loved it. I used XO all purpose flour, Chosen Foods avocado oil, yoso coconut yogurt, and So Nice Barista instead of the cream. The non-dairy chocolate chips were left over my my April stock-up because I can’t get them year-round. The reason I specified brand names is that it’s always an experiment with gluten/dairy-free substitutes. It took 10 or 15 more minutes to cook in the Bundt pan – I can’t remember which – I’m sorry – I was in a hurry and needed it to cool enough to glaze and the glaze to harden in the fridge before we covered it to take to to dinner…
Thanks for the five star review and great to hear that you were able to make it GF and DF!
“The reason I specified brand names is that it’s always an experiment with gluten/dairy-free substitutes.” — And yes I 100% wholeheartedly agree as I was GF and DF for a few years and had more flops that successes so always nice to hear something that was a win!
I have a Nordic Ware angel food/pound cake bundt pan, 16 cup capacity. Will this pan work for this recipe? Thank you!
It’s hard to say without personally having tried this. With baking you just never know until you give some thing a try.
We do not have canned pumpkin puree in Australia. Can I use ordinary pumpkin, mashed, or apple puree?
I would say used cooked mashed pumpkin. It’s going to depend on the moisture content Of the pumpkin you use how that will translate into the purée that you use versus what we can buy an a can. Which could affect The amount of flour that you need to use in case it were to be on the very watery or runny side but hopefully not.
great
great
decadent and delicious!
If you use the 15 oz box of Krusteaz spice quickbread mix what other ingredients do you add to this for the cake?
This recipe that you commented on is a recipe for a scratch cake and the recipe and all the ingredients are listed in detail.
If you want to use a boxed mix, you can make that recipe and follow the directions and ingredients I’ve written for that recipe.
They are two different recipes.
Hey Averie – I have some leftover pumpkin puree that I froze after Thanksgiving that I was thinking of using up. Do you foresee that being an issue if I thaw it out and use it (e.g. too watery or changing the flavour)?
Thanks!
I have never used pumpkin purée that has been frozen and then thawed. Like you, I worry that it could become too watery. Rather than making a recipe that doesn’t turn out, I would just use a new can.
I make my own pumpkin puree from pumpkins in our garden and freeze it all the time! If it’s too watery before you freeze it, it will be too watery when it’s thawed. But if it is a good consistency before you freeze it, it will be fine when you thaw it!
That’s all very good to know for people that are not familiar. For me personally, I am a canned Libbys pumpkin purée girl all the way :)
I made this yesterday to serve today, and it was delicious. I used cream instead of half-and-half and found that the ganache was too thick to drizzle, so I would recommend adding more cream or a little water to thin it out. It was still yummy, but I had to spread rather than drizzle it. Also, my cake didn’t look as fudgey inside as in the photos even though I used 1 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips, so I’ll add more next time. Otherwise, this was perfect!
I meant to add that maybe the reason the cake wasn’t as fudgey as it should have been was because some of the chips didn’t melt. I don’t know why this happened; the cake was perfectly baked.
Cream is thicker than half and half and that’s why yours probably came out a little thicker.
Chocolate chips don’t always melt. Paradoxical but true – some brands are more resistant to melting than others. Think of a chocolate chip cookie. Some chips melt, some just soften.
Glad you loved the cake!
Will it be okay if I let the batter sit for a while before baking?
Not at all! Once you mix it up, you have to bake it right away or it won’t rise properly.
Made this today with cooked down pumpkin. It was incredible! Oh my goodness is all I can say! Next time I think I will 1 and a half times the recipe to make a little larger bundt and last just a tad longer. Going to make this again for my religious women’s group on Thursday. Thank you for this awesome recipe!
This is one of my all time favorite pumpkin cakes and pumpkin recipes, period…and I wrote a pumpkin cookbook! I loved it so much I put it in the book. And I’m glad you loved it too and are going to 1.5x the batch. LMK how it goes.
I have never made this with homemade cooked down pumpkin (only canned puree), glad to know it works just fine too!
I made this today and pulled it out after 39 minutes only to have it fail when I inserted my cake tester. I popped it back in for three minutes and it was perfect. It tasted delicious! I did however have a problem with the ganache. I have made it before with no problem. This time I took the suggestion of adding a tablespoon of coffee liqueur and it thinned the ganache to the point it would not set. I even tried popping it in the freezer to no avail. I still used it as a glaze but more ran off the cake than stayed on and the presentation wasn’t as nice as I would have liked. I would suggest NOT adding additional liquid unless the ganache was thicker by adding more chips or less cream/half and half.
Glad the cake tasted delicious!
Needed a quick cake for a dinner party tonight. It was perfect! Didn’t have time for the ganache, but everyone still loved it. Thank you! Can’t wait to try it with the ganache.
Thanks for trying the recipe and I’m glad it came out great for you!
Love that you’re making pumpkin in the ‘off season’. This is one of my all time favorite cakes on my entire blog, 1000+ recipes, this is one of my personal faves. Glad you loved it too!