This flavorful pumpkin bundt cake is incredibly moist, perfectly spiced, and dotted with melty chocolate chips. Prefer your pumpkin cake plain? Leave the chocolate chips out!
Moist and dense, this pumpkin bundt cake delivers BIG. It’s not quite as heavy as a pound cake or quite as light as my favorite pumpkin cake. Instead, it meets somewhere in the middle and this place is called calorie-town. Worth every bite.
How to Make Pumpkin Bundt Cake
The process couldn’t be easier; this bundt cake requires just 2 bowls: 1 for wet and 1 for dry. The ingredients are all kitchen staples like flour, spices, vanilla, and eggs. Oil is the fat used in this pumpkin cake, so you’re guaranteed a super moist cake from the start. If calorie-town isn’t a place you want to be, you can sub unsweetened applesauce for half of the oil. Just as moist!
My favorite part, and this is just me being a total nerd, is that the cake uses an entire standard can of pumpkin. I always appreciate recipes calling for the whole can because you’re not stuck with a random 1/4 cup leftover. (Though it’s so good stirred into oatmeal with a splash of pure maple syrup!)
You need a 9.5 or a 10-inch pan for this pumpkin bundt cake. This is an affiliate link, but I’m glad to share my favorite bundt pan with you. Super quality, heavy-duty, great price, never warps, awesome rubber grips. I’ve been using it for years and, honestly, it’s just as durable as day 1.
Pumpkin Bundt Cake Toppings
Like the best things in the kitchen life, we’ll shower this pumpkin bundt with salted caramel. Even though salted caramel is incredible on its own, it doesn’t hold anything to the delicious pumpkin crumb underneath. And that’s saying a lot!
Other topping options:
- Brown Butter Icing from my Peach Bundt Cake
- Maple Icing from my Maple Cinnamon Rolls
- Chocolate Ganache
- Homemade Whipped Cream
- Brown Sugar Glaze from my Apple Bundt Cake
- Orange Glaze from my Cranberry Orange Bundt Cake
Instead of chocolate chips, this pumpkin bundt cake would be fantastic with a chai spice swirl.
Pumpkin Bundt Cake
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 65 minutes
- Total Time: 5 hours, 30 minutes
- Yield: serves 12
- Category: Cake
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
This flavorful pumpkin bundt cake is incredibly moist, perfectly spiced, and dotted with melty chocolate chips. Prefer your pumpkin cake plain? Leave the chocolate chips out!
Ingredients
- 2 and 3/4 cups (340g) all-purpose flour (spoon & leveled)
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
- 1 and 1/2 cups dark or semi-sweet chocolate chips
- 1 cup (240ml) vegetable oil*
- 4 large eggs
- 1 cup (200g) packed light or dark brown sugar
- 3/4 cup (150g) granulated sugar
- 1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)*
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- optional topping: salted caramel, brown butter icing, or maple icing
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (177°C) and grease a 9.5 or 10-inch bundt pan.
- Whisk the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, nutmeg, allspice, and chocolate chips together in a large bowl. Set aside. Whisk the oil, eggs, brown sugar, granulated sugar, pumpkin, and vanilla extract together until combined. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and use a mixer or whisk until completely combined. Batter will be thick.
- Bake for 55-70 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean with just a couple lightly moist crumbs. This is a large, heavy cake so don’t be alarmed if it takes a little longer in your oven.
- Once done, remove from the oven and allow to cool for 2 hours inside the pan. Then, invert the slightly cooled bundt cake onto a wire rack or serving dish. Allow to cool completely before drizzling with salted caramel (or icing) and serving.
- Cover leftover cake tightly and store at room temperature for a couple days and/or in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.
Notes
- Make Ahead Instructions: You can make the entire cake ahead of time (before topping with salted caramel or icing). Cover cooled cake and refrigerate for up to 2 days. Bring to room temperature before icing and serving. Baked cake can be frozen up to 3 months. Allow to thaw overnight in the refrigerator and bring to room temperature (if desired) before icing and serving.
- Special Tools: KitchenAid Hand Mixer | Glass Mixing Bowls | Wire Whisk | Bundt Pan
- Spices: Instead of the 1/2 teaspoon of ginger, cloves, nutmeg, and allspice– you can use 2 teaspoons of pumpkin pie spice. (Still add the 2 teaspoons of ground cinnamon.)
- Oil: Instead of 1 cup of oil, try 1/2 cup (90g) unsweetened applesauce and 1/2 (120ml) cup oil. The cake is just as moist.
- Pumpkin: I strongly recommend using canned pumpkin puree over homemade in this recipe, though 2 cups of homemade would work just fine. I found the flavor better with canned. I prefer Libby’s brand for this cake.
Missed the frozen part, just read it!
I made this cake for Thanksgiving, and it turned out great! The hardest part is waiting for it to cool. I topped it with salted caramel, and it complemented it perfectly.
CAn you make this cake with whole wheat flour instead?
I haven’t tested this recipe with whole wheat flour. Let me know if you try it!
This recipe was amazing! Thanks for sharing. I made it with 1/3 white whole wheat flour and it was yummy! No one could taste the difference. I will try to make it next time with 1/2 white whole wheat and 1/2 white flour. I used chocolate instead of a caramel topping. Thanks for sharing! Chocolate and pumpkin are an amazing pair!
I’m so glad you enjoyed it, Helena!
Forgot to mention that I used cardamom instead of allspice and it was super aromatic and yummy!
Hi! Want to make this today because I got two smaller bundt pans yesterday!! I only have Heath Toffee Bits. What do you think of those in the pumpkin bundt?? Weird flavors or okay??
Thanks as usual!
Toffee flavor with pumpkin – DELISH!! I say go for it and enjoy!
Yay!! We shall see, Going to do it now! Lol thanks for your quick response!
Made this for a group meeting. I didn’t have chocolate chips so used the chai filling instead and salted caramel on top. It was a major hit and I only had one piece left to bring home. But . . . there is still some salted caramel left!!
Hi! Would you be able to use coconut oil instead of a traditional vegetable oil?
Yes, melted coconut oil works! Enjoy!
I used Olive oil and turned out so well!
★★★★★
I made this last night and glazed it this morning and of course it was breakfast, rated it 5 stars.
I used coconut oil and omitted the chips- texture is perfect but we think it’s a moist spice cake that happens to use pumpkin. I will try your other pumpkin recipes too. Thanks
★★★★★
2 hours cooling in the pan? Is this ABSOLUTELY necessary?
This cake is pretty fragile right out of the oven and may break if removed from the pan too quickly. You can certainly try to shorten the time and see what happens!
I allowed it to cool 20 mins. a couple of spots stuck to the pan but i was able to piece it together
Can this recipe be made gluten free?
I haven’t tested this recipe with gluten free flour but let me know if you try it!
It works great with gluten free flour. Just make sure to add a little extra water also. They say always add 20% more liquid to your recipes when substituting with gluten free flour. I use 1 to 1 flour.
I made it with Cup4Cup gf flour and no other changes. It came out perfect.
★★★★★
Just made this and forgot the chocolate chips! Sprinkled top with sugar and cinnamon then cinnamon butter on a slice, it is delicious
★★★★★
I made this this morning. Being the dingbat that I am, I measured, mixed, whisked everything according to the directions, got it in my bundt pan. Gosh, Sally isn’t kidding this is thick. Weird looking too. Huh. Oh well, into the oven it went. I’m making the (un)salted caramel sauce to top it with, cake has been in the oven about, oh, 3 minutes, I glance at the butter, eggs and heavy cream on the counter, oh man! Crap! Take cake out, crack eggs into a bowl, dump batter into the bowl, wash my bundt pan and regrease it, pour the batter back in. Looks a lot more like cake batter now! What a doofus I am…lol! I’m not new to this, really I’m not! Ha The cake is absolutely delicious, we each ate a slice while still somewhat warm, topped with the amazing caramel sauce! This is an absolute keeper! Thank you, Sally, for another amazing recipe!!!
★★★★★
Delicious cake! I’ve made it twice…once with the chocolate chips, once without. I only use cinnamon — I don’t love the other “fall spices.” Both times I’ve only let it cool in the pan for 10 minutes — and it came out perfectly. (I do spray my nonstick bundt pan with a pretty good dose of baking spray.) Then I let it cool on the counter for a long time.
★★★★★
Can I substitute the pumpkin puree for carrot? I am in the UK and I can’t find pumpkin puree anywhere
J
Hi Jeff, I recommend my carrot cake recipe instead.
Jeff — I’m in London. There are a bunch of stores here (Waitrose, Sainsbury, Whole Foods) that are selling canned pumpkin right now. I think it’s back in stores for the fall and winter…
I love the plate this beautiful cake is resting on! Would you share which Juliska piece this is? Thank you!
Thank you, Kelly! It’s from the Berry & Thread Whitewash collection.
Which piece specifically? I own most pieces from Berry and Thread but not this lovely one! Thank you for your reply!
You may laugh but what brought me the most joy was when I went to print and it automatically printed on ONE page. I REALLY miss your old printing format. I know you’ve worked hard to fix the new one– but its still not great. Almost all your recipes used to fit on one 8X11 page. Now, its rare. I mess around with margins to try to fit it myself. If there was a way to change the format so the directions reached border to border and not just 2/3 of the page, it would be back to the ‘old’ way. I’m on your website numerous times a day so I realize this is such a small thing. Y’all are amazing. If you read this, thanks for listening 🙂
Made this gorgeous cake for our monthly Community Cafè. The salted caramel complimented the cake extremely well.
A very easy recipe to follow, metric conversion much appreciated. It just took an extra 20 minutes to bake than recipe stated, I wonder if this was because I used a silicone mould instead of a metal one?
Most definitely worth making again.
★★★★★
It was definitely because of the silicone molds. Metal baking pans are better heat conductors
Thank you, will give it a try.
★★★★★
Would it be ok to use Cake flour instead of APF?
I don’t recommend it– the pumpkin and oil are too heavy for cake flour. Here are all my recipes using cake flour if you’re interested.
Hi Sally!
I’m going to make this for one of my Thanksgiving desserts this year. Do you think the chai swirl you mentioned along with cinnamon chips instead of chocolate chips would work?
YES!!! YUM!
OMG Sally this so delicious and moist. Not too pumpkiny but skipped the chocolate. I made a flan cake and used a bain marie. My question is can you bake a bundt cake this way? I’ll tag you on IG when I post the pic! Thank you so much!
★★★★★
Hi Sally,
Can I sub the chocolate chips for chopped walnuts?
Thanks
Yes, definitely!
I weighed everything out and skipped the chocolate chips. I was intimated with all of the sugar being poured in, but the bundt cake came out perfectly and tasted amazing. Moist, not too sweet, full of the pumpkin and warm spice flavor.
★★★★★
Hello! So I know the recommendation is canned pumpkin, but I have A LOT of left over pumpkin puree after prepping the pumpkin chocolate chip cookies for Thursday and want to use it up. I am not the biggest fan of pumpkin flavor, so I think I am going to prefer the more subtle taste anyway … but, my question … would I blot the pumpkin puree as I did in the cookies??? Thanks!!!
PS: I have the pumpkin chocolate chip cookie dough, maple brown sugar cookie dough, and 3 pie crusts in the refrigerator just waiting to be baked …. the anticipation is killing me!!! I have made all these things before so I know they are AMAZING, I am just excited to share them all with family and friends!!!!
Hi Rachel! Thank you so much for trusting and baking my recipes. Means the world to me! Do not blot the pumpkin for this pumpkin bundt cake– you want all that moisture in there!
I noticed that this cake has just baking soda and salt added to the all purpose flour. Will it rise enough without using baking powder?? Getting ready to make it tomorrow and need to know if I need to use baking powder. Thanks so much!!
Hi Melanie! This cake rises wonderfully with the 2 teaspoons of baking soda listed in the recipe 🙂 Happy baking!
I tried this recipe again, but this time I subbed half the oil with applesauce. Everything was weighed out and it tried out great! Basically the same bundt cake with less calories.
If I were to sub all of the oil, would I just double the amount of applesauce from 90g to 180 g?
★★★★★
Hi Ara, I’m glad you were able to make it work with half applesauce! I don’t recommend subbing out all of the oil – without any fat your cake will take on a rubbery texture.
Hi Sally! I made this last night and I will tell you it is Kid Tested and APPROVED! I made it without the chocolate chips and substituted the 1 cup of Oil for 1 cup of melted butter, and topped it off with a Bourbon Vanilla Glaze (non-alcoholic!!) It came out wonderfully moist and the spices were awesome! Thanks for a great cake!! Will be making this again and again for sure!
★★★★★