Pumpkin Bread

In case we haven’t mentioned it already, we just LOVE pumpkin here in the shoebox.  Chances are, if it contains pumpkin in the ingredients list, we’re going to like it – a lot.  In fact, we’re not really sure if there are any recipes out there that wouldn’t benefit from a little pumpkin.  It’s like salt and pepper, pumpkin is.

Okay, so maybe we’re exaggerating . . . just a bit.

But who doesn’t love Fall?  And what says Fall better than pumpkin?  Well, leaves say Fall, but you can’t eat leaves.

Anyway, suffice it to say we’ve had much debate over what to make using our fresh Wamsted pumpkin puree.  You would think that, with the way we’ve been trying to ration it out, this pumpkin puree is liquid gold.

So late last week one of Jason’s coworkers brought in some homemade pumpkin bread.  He couldn’t stop talking about it.  So that was it.  The first two cups of our liquid gold would be used for pumpkin bread.

After all, pumpkin bread is the pumpkin standard, right?

Pumpkin Bread (thanks for the recipe, Paula!!)

• 3 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon ground nutmeg
• 2 1/2 cups sugar (we used turbinado)
• 4 large eggs
• 1 cup canola oil (we used vegetable oil)
• One 15-ounce can pumpkin puree (we used 15 ounces of fresh pumpkin puree)
• 1/2 cup water (we used 1/4 cup, because fresh puree contains more water than canned – in fact, we probably could have left the water out altogether)
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  Grease and lightly flour two 9x5x3″ loaf pans (we used ceramic loaf pans).

Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg into a large bowl and set aside.

Whisk together the sugar, eggs, and oil in a separate bowl until well blended.

Now here is where you would add the canned pumpkin, but we measured out 15 ounces of our liquid gold.

Notice that our fresh pumpkin puree had a decent amount of water in it, so we reduced the amount of water in the recipe to 1/4 cup.  However, as we watched our bread take 10 – 20 minutes longer to firm up in the center than the recipe called for, we realized we probably could have left the water out altogether.

Back to the recipe – stir into the egg/sugar/oil mixture the pumpkin puree, water, and vanilla.  Mix well.

Now gradually fold the dry ingredients into the wet, stirring just enough to moisten and blend all the ingredients.  Do not overmix.

Pour the batter evenly into the two prepared loaf pans.  The recipe says to bake for “about an hour or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.”  One of our loaves took 70 minutes to pass the toothpick test, the other took 80 minutes.  Again, we think this might have been due to a moisture water content in our batter.

Let the loaves sit for about 15 minutes in the pan.  During this time, as the loaf cools, the edges will start to pull away from the sides of the pan.  When you see this gap all the way around the loaf will turn out of the pan pretty easily – a couple shakes may be necessary.

Let the loaves cool out of the pan for at least an hour before slicing, if you can wait that long.

We couldn’t.

This pumpkin bread was quite delicious.  Very moist (but how much of that was due to using the fresh pumpkin puree?), a perfectly caramelized crust, a springy center that was not too dense,  and wow those spices were paired perfectly with the welcomed flavor of fresh pumpkin.

We took a loaf to the Wamsteds, as a thank-you for sharing one of their pumpkins.  We also tried to get another pumpkin from them, but unfortunately they were all spoken for.  Next time we’ll reserve more than one for sure.

So . . . two cups of fresh pumpkin puree remain.  What type of pumpkin delight should we make next?