My dad’s birthday cake is always one of my favorites. Don’t get me wrong, I love all birthday cakes, but my dad’s almost always involves fall flavors like pumpkin or cinnamon. And I mean come on, you can’t go wrong with pumpkin or cinnamon.
This year, my dad requested chocolate in his cake. I didn’t argue. But I didn’t know if that meant he didn’t want pumpkin or cinnamon or what. I had no ideas. *Enter Molly* Molly came up with the brilliant idea behind this Chocolate Pumpkin Cheesecake Cake, and I executed it.
On top of being extremely delicious and wonderful, this Chocolate Pumpkin Cheesecake Cake was really fun to make.
Can I tell you something? The chocolate cake is suuuuper moist because it has mayonnaise in it. I have always wanted to make chocolate cake using mayonnaise because I’ve heard about it several times and read a book where they baked with it. It sounds weird, doesn’t it? But trust me. It’s not. It does not taste like mayonnaise. There is no hint of mayonnaise. All chocolate. Really moist, not-too-dense-not-too-light chocolate. AND by adding mayonnaise, there’s no need for eggs in the batter, so you can eat as much batter as you want and not get salmonella. Although I didn’t do that, I promise.
Doesn’t that just look disgusting though? I promise you do not even THINK about that when you taste the final product. I was literally so distracted by how awesome the whole cake was that I didn’t even stop to think that there was a cup and a half of mayonnaise.
“This cake smells really moist.” – literal quote from me to Audrey
(“Oook…” – literal quote from Audrey to me)
And the FROSTING. Cinnamon + the best chocolate frosting = delicious. Marvelous. Fantastic. Way better than you might think. Although if you think it sounds amazing, it is. I was slightly skeptical. I don’t know why. It was AWESOME. The cinnamon wasn’t overpowering, and it complimented the chocolate of the frosting and cake.
– Molly
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PinIngredients
Pumpkin Cheesecake Layer
- 2 x (8 oz packages) cream cheese, softened
- 1 (15 oz can) pumpkin puree
- 3 eggs
- 1 egg yolk
- 1/4 cup sour cream
- 1 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/8 tsp nutmeg
- 1/8 tsp cloves
- 1/8 tsp allspice
- 12 tbsp flour
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Mayo Chocolate Cake
- 6 Tbsp. unsweetened cocoa
- 3 cups all purpose flour
- 1 Tbsp. baking soda
- 1/4 tsp. salt
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 1 1/2 cups mayonnaise
- 1 1/2 tsp.vanilla Extract
- 1 1/2 cups cold water
Chocolate Cinnamon Frosting
- 1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) unsalted butter, softened
- 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 1/4 cup powdered sugar, sifted
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 2 tablespoons milk
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- 1/3 cup Ovaltine
- 1 Tbsp. + 2 tsp. ground cinnamon
Instructions
Make the pumpkin cheesecake
- Make the pumpkin cheese cake layer a day ahead of time. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- In the bowl of your stand mixer, use the paddle attachment to beat the cream cheese until light and fluffy. Add the pumpkin, eggs and yolk, sour cream, sugar, and spices. Beat until combined and smooth, scraping down sides of bowl occasionally.
- Add the flour and vanilla and mix until combined. Pour mixture into a springform pan, greased and the bottom lined with non-stick aluminum foil.
- Bake for 1 hour. Turn oven off and leave the cheesecake in the oven for 2 more hours, then remove from oven and let come to room temperature completely before placing in fridge for 6-8 hours (overnight for best results).
Make the cake
- Preheat oven to 350°F, grease and flour two 8-inch cake pans.
- Sift cocoa, flour, baking soda, salt and sugar into a medium bowl, mix well.
- Combine mayonnaise, vanilla and water in an electric mixer at low speed. Once smooth, slowly add in dry mixture until just incorporated (do not over beat).
- Pour batter into cake pans and bake for 30 minutes or until done. Cool on wire racks and frost with your favorite chocolate frosting.
Make the frosting
- Cream together butter, cocoa powder and salt. Butter mixture will be very thick. Turn off the mixer, scrape down the sides of the bowl and add powdered sugar.
- Turn mixer on low and mix in powdered sugar while adding milk and vanilla extract. As the sugar incorporates, raise the speed of the mixer to beat the frosting. Beat until smooth.
- In a 1-cup measuring glass, stir together heavy cream and Ovaltine. Turn mixer speed to medium and pour cream mixture into frosting in a slow, steady stream, until you’ve reached your desired consistency. You may not need the full amount of Ovaltine and cream.
- Blend in cinnamon, to taste.
Assemble the cake
- To assemble the cake, level both chocolate cakes with a sharp knife.
- Place one cake on a plate and smooth on a thin layer of frosting.
- Place the cheesecake on top. (If cheesecake is too think for your taste, feel free to cut it in half horizontally.) If the layers don’t match up, you can use a knife to very carefully remove the sides of the cheesecake to fit.
- Smooth a thin layer of frosting on top of the cheesecake. Place the last cake layer on top of the cheesecake. Frost the cake. Keep refrigerated.
"Pour mixture into the prepared crust." — This instruction for the cheesecake layer, I didn't see anything about a prepared crust. Should there be one?
Sorry, that was an instruction leftover from the original cheesecake recipe. I will see that it's taken out, thanks for mentioning it!