Chocolate Pumpkin Cake

This recipe is a bit of a simply twist on using the cake mixes you find at the supermarket to make something special

This recipe makes one cake

Ingredients
- 1 500g package chocolate cake mix
- 1 425g can pumpkin
- 2 Eggs
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 450g cream cheese icing

Method
Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C and grease a 9x13 inch baking dish.
In a large bowl, mix the cake mix, pumpkin, eggs and oil for 3 minutes using a mixer on medium speed. Pour into the prepared pan and spread evenly.
Bake for 35 to 40 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool, then frost with cream cheese frosting.

As a chef, an important part of knowing how to make the best food is knowing why we are doing the things we do. If you are interested in knowing the reason behind anything in this recipe I have gone into a little bit of detail below.

• Chocolate cake mix - This just has everything you need inside it, so it makes our lives easier
• Can pumpkin - I get it, it's not the easiest item to find. you could roast/boil raw pumpkin and then puree it as an alternative.
• Eggs - Because we are adding moister (pumpkin) to the ready to go cake mix, we need to add a little more setting power to compensate for it.
• Vegetable oil - helps keep the cake moist when finished
• Cream cheese icing - is just delicious and goes so well with this combination of chocolate and pumpkin. You can google a recipe if you need one.
• The method - is pretty simple and should differ much from the premix method
• Allow to cool - it is important to make sure we let the cake cool before icing it so that the icing doesn't melt

I hope you enjoy making this cake for yourself and I would love to hear how you went and what you thought!

Enjoy!