Chocolate Pumpkin Bundt Cake

Preheat the oven to 350 F.

In a large bowl, beat the butter, vanilla and sugar together until creamy. Beat in the eggs one at a time and then divide the batter into two bowls.

Into one of the bowls of batter, beat in the pumpkin puree. In a separate bowl sift together 1 3/4 cups of the flour, 1 teaspoon of the baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon of the salt and all the spices. Add the flour mixture to the pumpkin batter and mix just until incorporated. Set aside.

To make the chocolate half of the batter, whisk together the remaining cup of flour, teaspoon of baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon of salt and the cocoa powder. Alternate adding the flour mixture and the buttermilk into the other bowl of plain batter until blended.

Pour half the pumpkin batter into a greased and floured 12-cup bundt cake pan. Spoon half the chocolate batter over the pumpkin layer. Spoon another quarter of the pumpkin batter over the chocolate, then add all the remaining chocolate over that. And finally, add all of the remaining pumpkin over that. Swirl a butter knife through the cake mixture several times each way.

Bake in the preheated 350 F oven for approximately 1 hour or until a cake tester comes out clean. Remove cake from the oven and allow to cool thoroughly before inverting it out of the pan onto a cake plate.

Dust with powdered sugar, if desired. Makes approximately 12-16 servings.

(Adapted from Baker Street blog.)