I would put a decent amount of spice, either pumpkin pie spice or a mix of cinnamon, nutmeg, clove spices. You can even add a tablespoon (or two if you love it, like me!) of molasses. I would likely put about a tablespoon of the pumpkin pie spice if you truly want some good flavour!

As an FYI, you can also do the cake mix thing with diet pop…..add a can of Diet Pepsi/Coke to a chocolate cake mix, or a can of Diet 7 Up to a white or yellow mix instead of oil and eggs and water. Actually works very well. =)

What does the molasses do to the texture/taste of the cake?

Look at a recipe for pumpkin bread and see how much pumpkin pie spice they use, and go that route. I think a tablespoon as recommended above seems like a lot.

Canned pumpkin is very good, so don’t have doubts about using it. You can use real pumpkin, but it’s a lot of work to boil and cut it up and press the water out of it and puree it.

The molasses adds a deeper flavour to the pumpkin, as well as a slight sweetness.

You can put a bunch of cinnamon, but nutmeg is really strong and should be used a bit more sparingly. (in my opinion.)

Here’s a recipe.

I used one box of yellow cake mix, one can of pumpkin, a very heaping tablespoon of pumpkin pie spice, and they came out PERFECT.