Chocolate Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Swirl Cake

Lore has it that Lucy Van Pelt made this every year before her brother Linus went off to pay tribute to the Great Pumpkin. You never saw it, but Linus kept a slice or two hidden in his blanket to snack on when it got dark, cold and lonely out there.

Ok, I totally made that up, but Lucy and Linus totally should have! Because this cake rocks and I urge you all to make this at home!

The best thing about this wonderfully moist, pumkinny, chocolaty delicious cake is that is couldn't be easier to make! You'll need:

1 package white or yellow cake mix
1 package (3.4 oz) Pumpkin Spice pudding mix (New and Seasonal!)
1 cup of canned pumpkin
1/2 cup of canola oil
1/2 cup of water
3 large eggs
3/4 cups chocolate chips
1/8 cup of chocolate syrup
2 Tbs cocoa powder

Place all ingredients in a large mixing bowl EXCEPT the chocolate syrup and the cocoa powder. With an electric mixer beat on medium until all the ingredients are well mixed.*

Divide the batter in half and pour half into another mixing bowl. In that mixing bowl add the chocolate syrup and cocoa powder. With the electric mixer, beat until all is well blended.

You can use any pan you want to: loaf, bundt, springform or tube pan.

Grease pan very well and pour the batters in alternating, one at a time so that you can create a swirled effect. The pumpkin batter is a bit thicker, so I used a spatula to help spread it in a swirly pattern. I repeated these steps until the pan was filled (quite high!).

Put the cake in to a preheated oven of 350 degrees. The baking could take anywhere from 45 minutes to over an hour depending on the type of pan you use. The loaf pan required 1 hour and 15 minutes to bake. The best thing is to keep checking. If you have a wooden skewer use it as you would a toothpick. Insert into the center of the cake and it should come out clean!

Let the cake cool for about 20 minutes before service.

* I totally forgot to add the chocolate chips into the batter, so they were added after the fact in layers. One layer of chips was placed in the middle of the cake and the other on top. It was not what I had planned, but it was tasty indeed!

The 3 basic items for this recipe!

Pumpkin Jell-O Pudding looks Mmm Good!