Pumpkin Mole Bread
Happy Dia de Los Muertos, aka, the end of Spooky Week (Halloween, All Hallow’s/All Saints Day, and All Souls’ Day), the only time of year when you won’t get sent to therapy for playing with skulls. While All Souls’ Day is relevant to any Catholic country, Mexico really has the concept nailed down, so to celebrate, I thought it appropriate to make mole. And because we’re still knee-deep in pumpkin season, pumpkin is a new world food, mole is a new world food, some mole (including this one) involves chocolate (which is also a new world food), pumpkin and chocolate go together, and I have a lot of spices to use up and enjoy mashing things with rocks…here we are. Mole (pronounced MO-lay) is a Mexican and Central American sauce, comprising a combination of chiles, nuts, seeds, chocolate, etc. pounded to a paste in a molcajete, or mortar and pestle. There are a million different moles, but the most famous is made with chocolate, which was a natural starting point for this mole designed to go in a cake rather than on meat. It also includes plenty of old world spices of the type one normally finds in pumpkin spice blends or Mexican hot chocolate, including aniseed, cinnamon, and coriander.
Now, I freely admit that this cake, as described in this recipe, is a faff. Mole is always a faff, if you’re making it from scratch. Seeds must be toasted and crushed, nuts toasted and crushed, and this mole has an eye-crossing list of ingredients, but the cake itself is quite simple. And it’s worth it. The slightly orangey, bitter-ish, spicy tang of the mole is a perfect foil for the creamy pumpkin cake, and in the proportions listed below, is not too sweet. There are ways to make it easier, of course, by using pre-ground spices for the coriander and cumin, using only one kind of chile, or using only one kind of nut, and all of those are fine. But if you have the time and want to really make a project out of it, make it exactly as described because this cake, soft and plush with a spicy crust and a ridge of equally spicy chocolate shot through the center, is an absolute banger.
INGREDIENTS
Makes 1 cake
FOR THE MOLE STREUSEL
1 tbsp coriander seeds
1 tbsp cumin seeds
1 tbsp anise seeds
3 tbsp toasted pumpkin seeds (hulled)
2 tbsp toasted sesame seeds
2 tbsp toasted sunflower seeds (hulled)
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp clove
2 tbsp dried orange peel
2 tbsp natural cocoa powder
1 tsp Ancho chile powder
1 tsp red chile powder
1/2 cup brown sugar
¼ cup chopped almonds
1/4 cup roughly chopped piñon nuts
1/4 cup chopped dry roasted peanuts
8g candied ginger, finely minced
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1 tablespoon cold butter
30g dark chocolate chips or chopped dark chocolate
FOR THE CAKE
2¼cups/285g all-purpose flour
1tsp baking powder
1tsp ground Pumpkin Spice blend, or 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon, 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg, 1/8 tsp ground clove, 1/8 tsp ground allspice, 1/4 tsp dried orange peel
¾ tsp kosher salt
½ tsp baking soda
1(15-ounce) can pumpkin purée
150g granulated sugar
150g packed light or dark brown sugar
2 eggs
60ml yogurt or kefir
120ml vegetable oil
1tsp vanilla extract
1/8 tsp almond extract
DIRECTIONS
Toast the coriander seeds, cumin seeds, and anise seeds in a cast iron pan. Do not burn. Grind in a molcajete or spice grinder.
Grind 2/3 of the pumpkin seeds, 1/2 the sunflower seeds, and 1/2 the sesame seeds, and combine both the ground and whole seeds with the spices.
Preheat the oven to 350°F/177°C
In a bowl, combine the brown sugar, spices, seeds, powdered spices, orange peel, chile powders, cocoa, and nuts. Cut the butter into small dice and then work them into the mixture with your fingers until crumbly. Divide the mixture in half and add the chocolate chips to one half. Leave the other plain, it gets sprinkled on top.
Oil a 8½- or 9-inch loaf pan; line with parchment, leaving a 2-inch overhang on the long sides.
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, cake spices, salt and baking soda. In another large bowl, whisk together the vegetable oil, pumpkin purée, granulated sugar, brown sugar, eggs, kefir or yogurt, vanilla, and almond extract. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry until combined and there are no lumps.
Pour half the batter to the prepared pan and smooth into an even layer. Pour in the chocolate half of the mole streusel into the pan in an even layer, and try not to let it touch the sides of the pan.
Pour the rest of the batter over the mole streusel, and then top with the non-chocolate half of the streusel, making sure it does reach the sides of the pan.
Bake for 75-85 minutes, or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean (note: the mole may be chocolaty and liquid at this stage, but the crumb should not be clinging to the skewer.)
Remove from the oven and cool on a rack. Allow to cool in the pan for about 10-15 minutes, and then remove the cake, peel off the baking paper, and allow it to cool on a rack so that it does not steam and get too moist in the pan. Serve.
SHOW YOUR WORK
This recipe is loosely adapted from two New York Times Cooking recipes, Samantha Sevitrane’s Pumpkin Bread (for the cake part) and Melissa Clark’s Pumpkin Bread with Chocolate Chip Streusel (for the streusel concept.)
FACTOIDS
• One creation myth of mole involves a bunch of frantic nuns who had to make dinner for a last-minute guest. The other is that it comes from pre-Colombian Mexico/Central America, which seems far more likely.
• Chocolate pods are often compared to/stand in for human hearts in ancient Aztec ritual, which makes mole particularly appropriate for Halloween.
