Pumpkin-Chocolate Cake

There are certain foods that go together, peanut butter and chocolate, pretzels and chocolate, nuts and chocolate, chocolate and chocolate...but pumpkin and chocolate? Oh yes, baby!

I discovered it a few years ago in a pumpkin-choco chip muffin at one of my favorite pastry places. Around the same time I found a recipe for a marbled bundt cake in a Woman's Day magazine. I was converted; this was my new favorite flavor pairing.

I am, in fact, just six years old.

The marbled pumpkin-chocolate cake is my birthday treat every year. I only have it in October usually. I used to make it myself, but my Man started taking over the ritual two years ago. I flew home from Boise that birthday after attending my beloved Grandmama's funeral.

Yeah, that's attractive. It really brings out my lazy eye.

Because my infatuation with this cake is complete, it is the thank-you gift I prepared for the trauma doctors and nurses at the hospital. They now likely have warm feelings for me...unless I forgot the sugar in which case the doctors flung their plastic forks at the wall, cursing my name, and the nurses took the cake to patients who pressed their call buttons too often.

But I digress. I'm going to give you the recipe, because it's time for Thanksgiving.

Never mind. I'm too lazy, and I want Woman's Day to take full responsibility if you don't like it, so the recipe can be found HERE. If you don't like it, though, I'm not sure we should remain friends, and I definitely won't invite you to my birthday party next year.


Note: I like to just plop in alternating spoonfuls of spiced pumpkin and chocolate batter and then swirl them like mad. My husband prefers to make neat layers of each (as above). My husband's cakes are prettier, and for some reason they taste better, too. I guess presentation does count for something.