Pumpkin Bundt Cake with Amaretti Cookies and Chocolate Chips is a soft, delicious Italian Ciambellone. It's perfect for the fall season when the pumpkins are ripe and plenty.
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bundt Cake with Amaretti is a simple dessert, an easy breakfast or a quick snack. Match it with a cup of tea, milk with some chocolate or a good coffee.
This Italian Ciambellone is made with creamy pumpkin pulp, not fibrous and quite sweet (see the paragraph below "What Kind of Pumpkin to Use"). Add Amaretti cookies and Chocolate chips and you make a simple recipe yet delicious, without butter nor milk. Soft, fragrant and delicious!
So let's find out how to make this terrific, easy dessert: Pumpkin Bundt Cake with Amaretti Cookies and Cocolate Chips!
Ingredients
- Prep Time: 15 Min
- Cook Time: 40 Min
- Servings: 8
Doses for a 22 cm (9 inch) bundt cake pan
- 3 medium eggs, at room temperature
- 160 g (¾ cup) of brown sugar
- 80 ml (6 tablespoons) of vegetable oil
- 1 tablespoon of grated orange zest
- 500 g (1.1 pound) of pumpkin pulp (weight net of waste)
- 100 g (10 tablespoons) of dark chocolate chips
- about 15 Amaretti Cookies
- 150 g (1 cup) of flour
- 16 g (4 teaspoons) of baking powder
Kitchen Tools and Equipment
- MIXER: For this Pumpkin Bundt Cake recipe we opted for an electric stand mixer that really is a great help for a perfect Pumpkin Ciambellone. We recommend the KitchenAid, but there are other really great brands. It's essential in this recipe to add the ingredients always stirring to mix them quickly. You can also make Italian Pumpkin Ciambella with Amaretti and Chocolate chips with an electric hand mixer.
- CHOPPER: An electric chopper is also useful for this recipe, to chop Amaretti cookies.
- CAKE PAN: We chose a bundt cake pan, which looks a bit like the shape of a pumpkin. But of course you can use the cake mold you prefer. The doses indicated are for a 22 cm (9 inch) bundt cake pan.
- CAKE DOME: Finally, very useful to preserve the softness of this cake, is a Cake Stand with Dome Cover.
Instructions
The Dough
Step 1) - To make Pumpkin Bundt Cake with Amaretti Cookies and Chocolate chips, start by cutting the pumpkin into cubes. Then placethem on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake in a preheated oven at 180°C (350°F) for 15 minutes, in order to make them wither and loose some liquid.
Remove the pumpkin from the oven and transfer it to a bowl. Mash it with the tines of a fork until you get a smooth puree and let it cool.
Step 2) - Chop the Amaretti cookies with a chopper and keep aside.
Step 3) - In the bowl of a mixer, whisk the eggs with the brown sugar for about 5 minutes. When the sugar has melted and the eggs are very frothy, without stopping the mixer, add the oil, pouring it slowly. Let it incorporate well.
Step 4) - Add the grated orange zest, the chopped Amaretti and the cooled pumpkin pulp to the dough, without stopping the mixer.
Step 5) - When all the ingredients are well blended, add the flour, baking powder and dark chocolate chips as the last ingredient.
The Baking
Step 6) - When all the ingredients are combined, stop the mixer. Pour the mixture into a bundt cake pan, greased with oil and floured.
Step 7) - Bake in a preheated oven at 180°C (350°F) for about 40 minutes, until a wooden toothpick stuck in the cake comes out dry and clean. Take the cake out of the oven and let it cool before removing it from the mold.
Step 8) - Let completly cool the Pumpkin Bundt Cake with Amaretti Cookies and Chocolate chips. Serve it sprinkled with powdered sugar or unsweetened cocoa powder.
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- Amaretti Cake | Torta agli Amaretti
- Easy Italian Marble Bundt Cake
- Pumpkin Gelato Recipe
- Rustic Italian Pumpkin Cake Recipe
Storage
You can keep Pumpkin Bundt Cake at room temperature for 4-5 days covered with cling film or with a special cake dome. You'll see, it will be as soft and moist as it has just been made!
Variations and Tips
Here are some variations of the Pumpkin bundt cake with Amaretti Cookies and Chocolate Chips Recipe:
- Almond Flour: You can replace the Amaretti cookies with an equal dose of almond flour. The cake will be less sweet and with a less intense but more delicate flavor.
- Spices: If you like the scents of spices and the aromatic foods, you can add a pinch of cinnamon and nutmeg to the dough. They go perfectly with the taste of pumpkin and/or almond.
- Rum: If the cake is not made for children, you can give your dessert an alcoholic note. So add two tablespoons of rum or replace the orange zest with an orange liqueur.
What Kind of Pumpkin to Use
For the success of the recipe, it's important that the pulp of the pumpkin is not watery. So not all the pumpkins are good. Usually, for cooking, it's better to use sugar pumpkins (also called "pie pumpkins" or "sweet pumpkins"), which are small and round.
Some of them are called Autumn Gold, Baby Pam, New England Pie Pumpkin, Ghost Rider, Lumina, Fairy Tale, Cinderella. Just to name a few.
In Italy, the most suitable qualities are the Mantuan pumpkin and the Delica pumpkin. These kind of pumpkins are particularly widespread in Lombardy, Veneto and Emilia Romagna.
These pumpkins have a dry, firm, sweet and floury pulp that makes them perfect for cooking.
The reason why in this recipe you put the pumpkin for a few minutes in the oven and then mash it with a fork, is precisely to make it dry further by eliminating some liquid contained in the pulp.
If you are sure of the quality and consistency of the pulp, you can also use raw pumpkin. Cut the pumpkin pulp into cubes and put them in a blender with the oil. You will get a thick and smooth cream that you will add to the dough of the pumpkin bundt cake.
Recipe Card

Pumpkin Bundt Cake with Amaretti & Chocolate
Ingredients
- 3 eggs at room temperature
- 160 g brown sugar ¾ cup
- 80 ml vegetable oil 6 tablespoons
- 1 tablespoon orange zest grated
- 500 g pumpkin 1.1 pound of pumpkin pulp (weight net of waste)
- 100 g dark chocolate chips 10 tablespoons of
- cookies about 15 Amaretti Cookies
- 150 g flour 1 cup
- 16 g baking powder 4 teaspoons
Instructions
THE DOUGH
- To make Pumpkin Bundt Cake with Amaretti Cookies and Chocolate chips, start by cutting the pumpkin into cubes. Then placethem on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake in a preheated oven at 180°C (350°F) for 15 minutes, in order to make them wither and loose some liquid.
- Remove the pumpkin from the oven and transfer it to a bowl. Mash it with the tines of a fork until you get a smooth puree and let it cool.
- Chop the Amaretti cookies with a chopper and keep aside.
- In the bowl of a mixer, whisk the eggs with the brown sugar for about 5 minutes. When the sugar has melted and the eggs are very frothy, without stopping the mixer, add the oil, pouring it slowly. Let it incorporate well.
- Add the grated orange zest, the chopped Amaretti and the cooled pumpkin pulp to the dough, without stopping the mixer.
- When all the ingredients are well blended, add the flour, baking powder and dark chocolate chips as the last ingredient.
THE BAKING
- When all the ingredients are combined, stop the mixer. Pour the mixture into a 22 cm (9 inch) bundt cake pan, greased with oil and floured.
- Bake in a preheated oven at 180°C (350°F) for about 40 minutes, until a wooden toothpick stuck in the cake comes out dry and clean. Take the cake out of the oven and let it cool before removing it from the mold.
- Let completly cool the Pumpkin Bundt Cake with Amaretti Cookies and Chocolate chips. Serve it sprinkled with powdered sugar or unsweetened cocoa powder.
Kiki Magner says
simple and flavorful cake. I added one teaspoon of vanilla, pinch of salt and almost doubled the chocolate chips. haha, couldn't help myself! Thanks for a keeper pumpkin cake recipe!